• Robert de Lacy
• Rupert Delatz
• Ian Hawke
• Wolf Ulrich
• Jowan Daveth-Helgram

 

An Honest Man in a Dishonest Organisation

London/Russia, July 1968

The month following Jenny's death was very difficult, both legally and personally. From the point I found the body and realised that I had to call the police, my actions were put under scrutiny in ways I really wasn't comfortable with. Especially given the complication that both Mikael Cuijper and Ian Cushing were separately involved the investigation. For a start, it took the investigating officer, a Detective Inspector Rogers, a good while to decide that I was innocent of the murder, and after that, explaining why I hadn't contacted the police about the ransom demand wasn't exactly a picnic, either. As far as Bucharest was concerned, I tried to say as little about that as possible, and thankfully they weren't inclined to contact the Romanian police for more information.

About a week later, the police learned of the attic room off Avery Row. When I heard that it had come onto their radar, I was bloody glad that I'd been so careful, both while watching the building and once I was inside. Naturally, they didn't share with me that they had received a tip-off, suggesting that the neighbours had complained about the smell from the decomposing body and they'd subsequently found Jenny's blood group at the scene. However, reading between the lines, I had the distinct impression that someone had joined the dots for them, connecting the room to the murder. What worried me most about the whole thing was that if it had, indeed, been a tip-off, that implied that whoever had murdered Jenny was still around, and was still trying to cause problems for me.

Her body was finally released to the family nearly three weeks after her death, and when I tried to talk to them, the reaction I got was frosty, to say the least. It was obvious that they blamed me for her death, especially when the details of the kidnapping began to come out in the tabloid press (who always lover a juicy murder) and I couldn't really fault their reasoning. She had been targeted because of her association with me, and therefore, if she'd never met me, she would have still been alive. It was all I could do to persuade them to give me the details of her funeral.

Of course the Group were there for me, as they had been after Audrey's death, even though the situation wasn't really the same. My late girlfriend wasn't one of them, the way Audrey had been, and Jenny and I had known each other for too short a time for either of us to really decide if it what we had was any more than just mutual attraction. But her death still shook me, and once again left me wondering if I was ever destined to settle down.

Worst of all, the police never did solve the case. Once they'd investigated all the possibilities of the attic in Avery Row, they seemed to be at a loss, and by the time poor Jenny was buried, a month to the day after the discovery of her body, the case had gone completely cold. It was as if the perpetrators had disappeared off the face of the planet, leaving me none the wiser about what I'd done to piss them off, which had led to the death of an innocent woman.

With the notoriety of being associated with the murder, it seemed sensible for Mikael Cuijper to return to South Africa, and keep his head behind the parapet for a while. He put his affairs in London in order, and then went back to Pretoria. I stayed in South Africa just long enough for him to legally come back into the country, and then headed home on another passport via Rhodesia and Egypt.

Still, at least back in London, I had something to keep myself busy. Early in the century, before I was born, my grandfather had founded a law firm, and had always hoped that I would follow in his footsteps, hence the fact that I'd taken the Masters in Law after I'd finished my first degree. I'd worked with the Firm from 1932 until the outbreak of the war, as he was winding down and looking to retire. After my grandmother died in 1950, he retired for good, and from 1950-53 I actually ran the firm. But after Audrey's death I'd pretty much walked away. In my absences, the senior partner had been a family friend named Roger Caldwell, but grandfather had always made it clear that it would be mine when I was ready. When he'd passed away in 1960, at the grand old age of 95, he'd left it (and pretty much everything else) to me in his will, which had got me back through the door and I took over from Caldwell on a more permanent basis.

Since then, I had changed the focus from a civil law practice, into an international legal and trade consultancy, that being my preferred area of speciality. The fact that I still had pretty decent security clearance from my work with the SIS helped make the conversion viable, as it gave me access to government, as well as private sector contracts. I'd also hired two experts in international trade and commercial law, bringing them onboard as partners so they could deal with some of the less sensitive work, and keep the place running during my Cuijper-inspired absences.

In the aftermath of Jenny's death, I returned to working full time at the firm. I got into a regular routine of arriving at the office in the Middle Temple at around 8am, heading out for lunch for a couple of hours, and then staying at my desk until somewhere between 5.30pm and 6pm. Come mid-July, I had just finished working on a complicated case involving the unauthorised removal of certain MoD materiel from the naval base in Gibraltar and decided to take my MoD contact, David Whitfield, out for lunch to celebrate its successful resolution.

Despite not currently being active in journalism, I had kept up my membership of the Press Club, given its location a short walk from the office, and as Whitfield had never been there before, it seemed like a good place to take him. A damned fine meal, a rather good bottle of claret and a liberal measure of port later, I was escorting him out when I felt a tap on the shoulder. I turned to see the concierge - a wonderful old fellow named Marcus, who reminded me more than a little of Old Carmichael (who had finally retired from Cushing service shortly after my grandfather died).

"Last time Mr Cuijper called in, he asked us to pass on any messages for him to yourself, sir," he said, handing me a postcard, "this arrived for him a couple of days ago."

"I'll make sure he gets it," I acknowledged, quickly taking in the gold-covered onion domes on the front, and then stuffing the postcard into the inner pocket of my coat.

"Thank you, sir. Enjoy the rest of your afternoon."

I nodded to him, and Whitfield and I departed.

"What was that about?" Whitfield asked.

"Just doing a favour for a friend. Now, you'll have to excuse me. I have a client meeting at three that I can't be late for."

"Of course...of course," he said, offering me his hand, "Well, look forward to working with you again, Cushing."

"Likewise," I replied, and once we'd shaken, we parted and I headed back towards the Middle Temple.

Once back at my chambers, I shut the door of my office, so that no-one would disturb me, and sat at my desk. I got the card out of my pocket and took a proper look at it. On the front was the picture of a typical Russian Orthodox cathedral, complete with gilt-roofed onion domes. The handwriting on the back was in an unfamiliar hand, and the message itself was in German.

"Mihai. Getting to grips with the challenges of my new posting. Wish you were here. Wolf."

I'd never heard my name shortened to Mihai before, and I didn't think I knew anyone called Wolf, which piqued my curiosity. Looking at the address details, the card had come directly to the Press Club, and postmark was in both Cyrillic and German, typical of the Russian Occupied Territories. It said Tosno, and was dated about three weeks before. The description in the bottom left hand corner, partially obscured by the handwritten greeting (possibly intentionally), informed me that the card was of the Athanee Palace Hotel, Bucharest, and yet it most definitely didn't have the hotel on the front. Puzzled, I took a closer look, and realised that it seemed thicker than usual. The typically Russian picture had been very carefully stuck over the original image on the front of the card, so that not a wrinkle was visible. On looking more closely, I saw a red mark on one corner, extending under the picture, as if whoever had changed the image had given himself a paper cut in the process.

I put the card on the desk, crossed to one of the bookshelves and pulled down a big world atlas. Tosno was about 35 miles south-east of St Petersburg, which put it squarely in the Nazi-Russian disputed territories, on the main road towards Novgorod. Given that everything coming off the front was probably being read and potentially censored by the Nazi authorities in St Petersburg, I began to appreciate the caution shown by its sender. But I wished he had been a little less opaque. I let my mind drift for a while, seeing if inspiration would strike, and after a moment or two, a snatch of conversation came to me. Perhaps it was the association with the Athanee Palace which had triggered the memory.

"How much trouble are you likely to be in for telling me this?" I remembered myself asking, as I sat in the hotel dining room, looking at a young Gestapo Captain named Ulrich.

"He isn't in my chain of command," had come the reply, "so technically he doesn't have the right to issue me with a direct order. And I anticipate arresting Albescu's murderer either later tonight or early tomorrow, so he can't even point to an unsolved crime as a sign of my incompetence. But we shall see."

"If you end up on the Russian Front, try to get word to me," I had answered, and given him Mikael Cuijper's business card.

Could Haupsturmführer Ulrich be the mysterious Wolf? Curious, I picked up the private line I use when speaking to my government contacts and dialled an old friend. Being both my old boss, mentor and SIS contact, as well as a fellow member of the Group, Laurence Rathbone was one of the few people I'd fully confided in after Bucharest.

"Brigadier? It's Ian Cushing."

"Afternoon, old chap."

"I was wondering if you might be able to check something for me..."

"It depends what it is."

"You remember after my March trip, I mentioned a young captain who helped me out of a bit of a jam?"

"Yes," he answered, his tone guarded.

"Is there any way of finding out any more about him?"

"Is there any particular reason why you aren't asking young Gifford this? He is, after all, your primary point of contact."

"It's personal curiosity - not a matter of national security."

"Hmph," came his disbelieving snort, "can you give me any specific details I might be able to use to track him down?"

"His surname is Ulrich. I'd guess he's 32 or 33. He used to be a policeman in Munich, before being drafted into his current organisation. And he may have been posted to Russia since March."

"It's not much to work with, but I'll see what I can do. Should I call you back on this number?"

"Why don't we meet for a drink at the In and Out this evening?"

"6.00pm?" he suggested.

"I'll see you then," I said, and hung up the phone.

I spent the afternoon in a general catch-up meeting with my business partners, finished off some of the odd jobs that had been stacking up while I'd been busy with the Gibraltar business, and locked up the office at about 5.30pm. I debated whether to walk over to Piccadilly, but discouraged by the light but persistent summer rain, I ended up catching a cab. It dropped me at the In and Out (more officially, the Naval and Military Club) about twenty minutes later. I don't spend my entire life in the gentleman's clubs of London, but they do make very useful meeting places.

"Good evening, Major Cushing," the doorman said, as he took my coat, "nice to see you again."

"And you, John. Tell me, is there any chance I could use one of the private rooms this evening."

"For how many?"

"Just two of us. I'm meeting Brigadier Rathbone."

"Will you require dinner to be served in there, sir?"

"I'm not sure at this point."

"I'll see what I can arrange."

"Thanks. I'll be in the bar, if you need me."

"Very good, sir."

Once in the bar, I ordered a Scotch and sought out a corner table where I could wait for Laurence. He arrived about fifteen minutes later, when I was about a third of the way through the Times crossword. He'd officially retired from the SIS about eight years before, although he maintained his contacts with his old department, and the life of leisure was suiting him. His two sons had left university and were making their own lives - Simon having followed his father into the SIS, and William as a doctor - and starting families of their own; and he and his wife had become doting grandparents, in between travelling and doing some serious gardening at their retirement home in Hastings. He nodded in my direction, then got himself a drink and crossed to where I was sitting.

"John says that we can use the Tewkesbury Room. Down the hall, second on the left."

"Excellent."

I picked up my drink and we walked down the corridor. The room contained four leather armchairs beside the fireplace, and there was a dining table and chairs across the room. We installed ourselves in two of the armchairs, and then Laurence handed me a file stamped with an SIS reference number.

"Is this who you're looking for?" he asked.

I checked the cover page: Freiherr Wolfgang Dietrich Armand Ulrich, born 5 June 1936. From the attached photograph, it certainly looked like my acquaintance from Bucharest, although the picture was of a younger man in suit and tie, a Kripo badge pinned on the breast pocket of the suit jacket.

"Seems to be. I hadn't realised he was a nobleman.

"Second son of Dietrich Hermann Ulrich, Freiherr von Ansbach."

"Which is what...a Baron?"

"Equivalent of, I think. I always get a little confused with Kraut titles. His father's alive; his mother died when he was in his teens."

"How come he already has an SIS file?" I asked, flicking idly through the pages. It wasn't particularly extensive, mainly rough background and service history, but it bothered me that it existed at all, as that meant he was already on the radar, which couldn't be good.

"His father was an intimate of Himmler's, and remained in the upper echelons of the Ahnenerbe until he retired from the service in 1950, on the death of HIS father. His elder brother was previously in the SD, and is now on Führer Heydrich's personal staff. Naturally, with such connections, that makes him a person of interest."

I turned to the service history. Despite the relatively high status of both his father and brother within the SS, after studying languages at university - and achieving a good degree in the process - Wolfgang Ulrich had joined the Munich Orpo in 1957 as a humble beat cop. His superior officers quickly came to the conclusion that he was wasted there, so he had been transferred to the Kripo in 1960 as a Kriminalassistent, which had given him the equivalent rank of an SS Obersturmführer.

His investigation into the murderer of a high Party official in 1966, and the successful arrest of the culprit, had put him on the radar of the powers that be and won him the Iron Cross Second Class, and the move to the Gestapo had come later that year, along with the promotion to his current rank. However, after some kind of run-in with a senior officer over "procedural differences", which had gained him a black mark on his permanent record, had he had been posted to Bucharest. After a further unspecified infraction - I was pretty sure I knew what that one was - which had led to a brief recall to Berlin, he had been sent to St Petersburg in May 1968, on the direct orders of the deputy commander of the Ahnenerbe, and assigned to Einsatzgruppe 4.

My heart sank as I read that last part. His new assignment was to a unit which specialised in mass murder, and which, along with the Gestapo, had been decreed to be a criminal organisation in a test case brought under both British and Allied Law in 1960.

"So why are you interested in the whereabouts of this particular Kraut?" Laurence asked.

"I think he may have sent me a message."

I reached into my pocket and handed him the postcard. He took it and studied it carefully, turning it over as he did, and I could see him spotting the same inconsistencies which had intrigued me. As he saw it, he frowned.

"Might I ask why you're suddenly pen pals with an SS captain?"

"The last evening I was in Bucharest, when he gave me back my passport, I handed him my business card and jokingly told him to contact me if he got sent to the Russian Front. He asked what I could do. I suggested that I might know people who could help him if he decided to...well, walk away was how I put it."

Laurence looked at me, somewhere between annoyed and incredulous.

"You basically offered to help him defect if the going got too tough?" he asked, and I nodded, "how did he take that?"

"If I remember rightly, his answer was 'Let's hope it doesn't come to that, or my loyalty to the Fatherland might be sorely tested'."

"And now he's called you on your offer."

"It seems like it. I certainly don't see anything in his service record which suggests a predisposition towards mass murder, so I wonder if his current posting may have been the final straw in what looks to have been a somewhat chequered career. I suppose that's the problem with being an honest man in a dishonest organisation."

"Ian, why on earth did you break cover with a Gestapo officer who you barely knew? Of all people?"

"I'd been told that he refused to buckle under to Ritter on my behalf. In light of this..." I indicated his file, "...perhaps he thought his own family connections would protect him. But at the time, it looked as if he'd helped me when he could have sold me out. So I took a leap of faith."

"And the blood on the card. Do you think he put it there intentionally?"

"Because it can be used as an arcane connection?" I asked, realising where he was going. The possibility that Ulrich, if it was Ulrich, had cut himself on purpose hadn't even occurred to me.

"Did you do anything while you were in Bucharest which might have hinted to him that you would recognise it for that?"

"Not intentionally," I replied, "and there isn't anything in his file which suggests any connection with the esoteric."

"Besides his father being in the Ahnenerbe and personal friends with Himmler, you mean?"

"Himmler had a lot of friends, and despite the populist literature, not all the Ahnenerbe are black magicians."

"No. But the fact that he was based at the Wewelsburg when it was being rebuilt as the SS Order Castle would seem significant," he replied, "perhaps it's my suspicious mind, but I'd say that implies that Dietrich von Ansbach may have been more than just another Ahnenerbe office. And a sensitivity for what we do often runs in families...your good self being an unusual exception to that."

"I didn't read anything from Ulrich which left me with the feeling that he was a practitioner," I answered, "but I suppose that doesn't make it impossible. After all, its not something our kind advertise."

"And yet he's sent you an arcane way to find him."

"Assuming that's what it is."

"Call it a working theory," Laurence replied, "which begs the question, what happens if he's not walking the same path as us?"

"No. If he was a black Adept, I'm sure I would have known," I answered, "I certainly wouldn't have felt comfortable enough to give him my contact details."

"I suppose that's true," he conceded, "even if you weren't looking for it, I doubt you would have felt you could trust him. At least I bloody well hope you wouldn't have trusted him."

"There's also the issue that if he were, that would put firmly him in Ritter's camp, and I'd lay good odds that he isn't, otherwise he wouldn't have stood between that bastard and me at the airport."

I paused for a moment, and then looked at my mentor.

"I have to go to Russia to find him. Get him out of there."

"Why?"

"He's asked for my help. And if he is one of us - a follower of the Light - and gods forbid, Ritter found out, then if he was lucky he'd end up in a camp with the Masons, and the Roma, and all the other esoterically inclined 'undesirables' who follow different paths to Ritter and his crew. More likely, he'd have a starring role at one of their rituals."

"I understand what you're saying," he replied, "but I don't think you're thinking this through properly. For a start, the Nazis haven't got full control of the area around Tosno. The Russian army is less than fifty miles away, and there's been a lot of resistance activity there over the last few months. So it's potentially an active combat zone."

"I've seen combat before."

"A long time ago."

"I've kept myself in good shape, and playing war correspondent and occasional government agent for a while has kept a lot of my SOE skills honed. And you've commented before on how I'm still a lot fitter and healthier than normal for someone in sight of my sixtieth birthday."

"That doesn't answer my second objection."

"Which is?"

"How on Earth would you find him? It would be like looking for a needle in a haystack."

"Not with the card," I answered, "you know location rituals are something I'm pretty good at. I can use it to find him."

"Assuming it's his, and not the postman who delivered it to the Press Club, or the mail room in Tosno, or..."

"It extends under the picture. So whoever changed the card, left the blood. Who else would have done that but its sender?"

He shrugged, acknowledging the point, then asked.

"What about the practicalities? How would you get there? You aren't serving military, and he isn't a strategic asset."

"So what do you suggest? Just leaving him to die on the Russian Front?"

"You wouldn't think twice about that happening to any other Nazi," he replied, "in fact, you'd probably be helping the partisans fire the mortars."

"But he isn't just any other Nazi," I said, firmly, "he saved my life and now he's asked for my aid. So with your help or without it, I'm going to and fetch him."

"You really are one of the most stubborn people I've ever known," he said, with a sigh, and gestured for me to sit back down. "I'll talk to some people. See if anyone is willing to help with this."

"Thank you," I answered, breathing a sigh of relief.

"On one condition. I want you to swear to me that you won't do anything stupid until I get back to you."

I found myself looking down and picking up my glass, so that I wouldn't have to answer.

"Ian, swear to me."

Reluctantly I looked up and met his eyes.

"I do so swear."

"Thank you. I'll talk to some people, and be in touch."

And with that, he got to his feet, downed his glass, picked up the file and walked out of the room. I finished my drink, put the card into my pocket, and headed for the dining room to grab a bite to eat.

I got home at around 8.30pm, and settled down in one of the comfortable armchairs in the library with a glass of brandy. I put the card on the table beside me, and pondered my next move. I pulled a couple of larger scale maps of Russia down from the shelves, and laid them out on the floor in front of me, finding Tosno once more. I traced the road to the south-east of St Petersburg and found the town relatively quickly. It didn't seem to be a particularly large place, but given its location on one of the major routes towards Novgorod, I could see the strategic importance of it to the Nazis.

I was thinking about a location ritual, to check if "Wolf" was still even in that area, when I realised that I felt faint. Not inebriated exactly - so it wasn't the fault of either the wine with dinner, or the brandy - but certainly light headed. I sat back in the chair, and ran through a brief incantation to centre myself and try and focus, but as I completed it, I was hit with a stabbing pain in the forehead. Somehow I was under attack. I tried to bring up my mental shields to protect myself, but before I could succeed, I was hit by conflicting feelings. On the one hand, I felt a compulsion to go after Wolf which I could barely resist, while on the other, something was telling me that if I did so, I was a dead man. And then I was hit by a wave of agony, possibly from multiple sources, and I blacked out.

When I came around, I was lying on the floor, spread-eagled on the maps in front of my chair. I felt tired and sick, and had a headache that would wake the dead. The last time I'd felt quite so bad was when I'd been trying to find Jenny from Bucharest, and had hit the wards around the attic where she'd been kept prisoner. I lay there for a good few minutes, trying to centre and get myself back under control, and then carefully sat up. Somewhere in the process, I'd knocked over the table, and my glass was lying shattered to one side, the rather good Napoleon it had contained seeping into the carpet. Then I realised that Wolf's postcard was lying on the map, the corner with the bloodstain to the south-west of Tosno, almost as if it was pointing to that location.

I took a pen out of my pocket, and marked that location. But as I did so, I touched the card, and suddenly I was in contact with someone...someone a very, very long way away, who was almost insensible with pain.

"Mihai. Help me."

There was something familiar about the link...as if was coming from somebody I'd worked with before on an arcane level, as I had with members of the Lyminge Group. That made no sense if it was Ulrich, who I had met barely three or four times. And yet...somehow, I knew whoever I was in contact with.

"Wolf? Is that you?"

"Please. It's safe now. He's dead."

"Who's dead?" I asked, but the contact was fading, swallowed by pain. A moment or two later, it was gone, and I was left wondering if I'd imagined the whole thing...or whether it was a side-effect of the psychic backlash that had hit me. Very gingerly, I got to my feet, and glanced at the clock. I'd been out for about twenty minutes. At a loss what else to do, I crossed to the phone, and dialled Laurence's number. He answered on the second ring.

"Ian? I said I'd talk to you tomorrow."

"I think I made contact with Wolf."

"You swore to me that you wouldn't go after him."

"And I didn't. I was sitting in the library, trying to figure out where I needed to go if you did arrange transport for me, and I came under some kind of psychic attack. It was as if two people were in my head, sending me conflicting instructions."

"That's crazy."

"I know...but that's what it felt like. Then something must have happened. It felt like the sky had dropped in on me, and I blacked out for a while."

"Are you alright?"

"Still trying to figure that out. But when I came round, the postcard was indicating a point on the map. I was marking it and touched the card, and I think it put me in actual contact with him. I swear I heard his voice in my head."

"That would seem to confirm that he's an Adept."

"I don't know. I'm not sure I could reach out to a total stranger 1,300 miles away."

"Maybe you're only strangers in this life?" Laurence said, with a shrug, "but, that said, how do you know this isn't just some kind of trick by your friend Herr Ritter to lure you into his clutches, with this 'Wolf' as bait?"

"I don't...but whoever contacted me also said "it's safe now", implying that it wasn't before. I want to trust him, and if I'm going to help him, it would seem the sooner the better."

"You're a damn fool, Ian," he answered, with a sigh, "okay, where was he?"

"Still in the vicinity of Tosno."

"You're lucky that one of my best contacts in the travel business is an insomniac."

"You've managed to arrange something?"

"It won't be pretty. No time for cover stories or detailed preparations. You'll be going in sterile and making it up as you go along."

"Understood. Just get me a flight there, and some means of extraction, and I'll do the rest."

"Be at Damyns Hall Aerodrome, near Upminster, no later than 23.00. Ask for Gallagher."

"I owe you one."

"You most certainly do," he answered, not entirely joking, and put down the phone.

I threw some necessities into a backpack -  a change of clothes, the Browning (plus silencer and ammo), some ration bars and a water bottle, the postcard, the map I had marked with Wolf's possible location, my 'letter opener' and an assortment of other Working items. I also chucked in one of the rolls of Krugerrands which I'd picked up in South Africa the year before: they were the SA government's new way of marketing the gold they were mining out of the ground at an impressive rate. Gold was always a good bargaining chip. Then I changed into some dark clothes, throwing a camo jacket over the top for warmth, and went downstairs. I left a note for Barratt (the townhouse butler, who had taken over when Young Carmichael had moved to Tenterden) asking him to call the office first thing in the morning and tell them I'd been called out of town, then went outside and locked the door.

I got the Triumph T-120 motorbike I sometimes use around town out of the garage, and roared away, hoping I hadn't woken up too many of my neighbours. I made the deadline in plenty of time, and was relieved that I didn't have to talk my way past a security guard. Which was probably why Laurence had chosen Damyns Hall. I glanced around, and saw a small plane with a young woman standing beside it, wearing jeans and a sheepskin flying jacket of the kind I'd seen fighter pilots wearing during the war. She was about 5'4", looked to be in her late twenties, and had bobbed dark hair. Her confident manner reminded me painfully of Audrey.

"You must be Astor?" she asked, offering her hand. I was surprised - Astor was the codename I'd used in the SOE - but obviously my mentor had succumbed to his inner spook when he was setting this up.

"Miss Gallagher," I answered, taking it.

"Just Gallagher," she replied, looking me up and down, regarding my apparent age with some concern, "so, when did you last make a parachute jump?"

"It was a while ago," I answered, "but that's for me to worry about."

"On your head be it," she replied, with a shrug, and we climbed aboard. I looked around the small passenger cabin, to see that it had been retrofitted for jumping. A couple of parachutes were hung on one side of the fuselage.

"I understand you have a pilot's licence?" she asked, and I nodded (a man has to have a hobby, and it was very useful when travelling on government business), so she indicated for me to move forward, "take the co-pilot's seat."

I did as I was bid and strapped myself in, while she started going through the pre-flight checks. Ten minutes later, we were taxiing down the runway. Once we were airborne and levelled off, she dug into a pocket beside her seat and handed me a chart. It was more detailed than my own, which would potentially be handy.

"Flight time will be three and a half to four hours, depending on weather and what we meet. My instructions are to make a pass over these co-ordinates..." keeping one hand on the steering column, she indicated a location which looked to be in roughly the right area and was marked with a small red dot, "...and let you jump. I've been given a designated pick-up site here..." she pointed to another place on the map, this time with a blue dot, which I guessed was about thirty miles from Tosno, to the south-east, "...which is apparently in uncontrolled territory. I'll be there at midnight tomorrow, local time - which is three hours ahead, if you don't know already. There's a pack of flares in the back, by the parachutes. Take them. If I see them at the exfil site I'll land. If I don't, my instructions are to leave you to find your own way home."

"Understood."

"Keep the map. I don't need it any more. Any questions?"

"Midnight tomorrow doesn't give me very long," I said, tucking the chart into the inside pocket of my camo jacket.

"It's all you've got," she answered, with a shrug.

"Then I'll try to be on time," I replied, "presumably you've been told that if this goes according to plan, I'll have company when I reach the rendezvous. He may be wounded."

"I'll make sure there's some medical supplies in the back."

"Thank you."

She nodded, then lapsed into silence. I decided to let her concentrate, and snatched some sleep.

I awoke to a gently shaking, and checked my watch. Allowing for the three hour time shift, it was about 5.15am.

"We'll be over the drop zone in twenty minutes. You should get ready."

"Any problems?"

"Not so far, but we're in Kraut-controlled airspace, so anything could happen."

"Understood."

"Good. I like a man who's quick on the uptake," she answered, and waved for me to move aft.

I headed back into the main cabin and started getting ready to jump. I strapped on a parachute, arranging my own backpack and the bag of flares so that they wouldn't interfere with the parachute's operation. I was checking the fastenings when I heard an explosion outside, and felt the plane shake then pick up speed.

"We've been spotted, and we're taking fire," Gallagher called from the cockpit. She sounded surprisingly calm. "How long until you're ready? I may need to drop you off a little early."

"Two minutes," I answered, making my final checks.

"I'll try to dodge them until then."

As she spoke, there was another, closer bang and this time the shaking was worse. I also thought I smelt burning.

"Were we just hit?" I asked, moving over to the jump door.

"Not quite. Ready?"

"Opening the door now."

"Good luck."

"And you," I answered, and made ready to jump. However, as I did, another shell exploded nearby, and I was knocked out of the doorway. Thankfully I kept my wits about me, and remembered to count to ten then pull the rip cord. Above me, I could see the plane shearing off course, and throwing itself into a set of evasive manoeuvres. I muttered a few words of protection to the gods for Gallagher, and then concentrated on getting down in one piece.

I landed hard in a small clearing, jarring myself badly as I hit at a less than ideal angle, but after lying winded for a few moments, I realised that nothing was broken. Better still, I hadn't heard the plane blow up.

I stripped off the parachute and hid it in some nearby bushes. Then I buckled my shoulder holster under the camo jacket, threw up some personal wards (just in case) and checked I still had the map. I stuffed the flares into my backpack and slung it onto my back, then started moving away from the area as quickly and quietly as I could. The terrain around where I'd landed was largely wooded, with occasional fields. Nearby I heard the gurgling of a brook or small river and made for it. I walked upstream in the water for about half an hour, in case anyone had seen my parachute and came after me with dogs, until my path intersected with a roadway which crossed the brook on a stone bridge. I ducked underneath it, so I wouldn't be visible to anyone driving along the road, and started looking about me to get my bearings.

At roughly 06.00 hours, it was about an hour to sunrise, I looked around, but couldn't make out much more than silhouettes against the pre-dawn blue of the sky. I dug Gallagher's map out of the pocket where I'd stashed it, turned on a small pocket torch, and began to try to figure out where I was. If my calculations were right, I'd come down about twenty-five miles to the west of Tosno as the crow flies, but rather further by road, as what was marked didn't go in a convenient straight line. I cursed as I realised that I would need to find some kind of transport to get to the area the postcard had indicated, and then get to the exfil site in time.

Once I'd got my bearings, I slipped the ankh pendant from around my neck, dug the card out of my pocket and settled down with my back against the underside of the bridge. At least there was a couple of feet of banking on either side of the water, where I could sit in relative comfort, although I had to spread the map out on my knees to avoid it getting wet. Then I let myself into a Working trance, and using the card as a focus, started reaching out to find Wolf. It took about half an hour, after which I was cold and my feet felt like ice blocks, despite the mild July air, but after comparing charts, I confirmed a location that tied up with the one I'd been shown back home. On the off-chance I reached out to see if the contact I'd felt earlier was still there, but there was nothing clear. Just impressions of pain. Still, hopefully that meant that he was still alive.

I folded it away the maps and considered my next move. My best option was to follow the road and hope I found some means of transport sooner rather than later. I stood up, listened for a moment to make sure nothing was coming, and then climbed up onto the road and started to walk.

There was very little traffic, but the occasional car did pass me. I quickly got into a routine when I heard an engine. I would duck into cover, weapon drawn, until I could see what was coming and how many people were inside, looking for a vehicle with a single occupant. In the end, it was a good hour later that I got what I wanted: a car rather than a bike or truck, with German army markings. I aimed the silenced Browning and fired once, hitting one of the rear tires as it passed me and receded down the road. A short while later, the driver came to a stop, obviously noticing the flat tyre, and got out to investigate. He was in uniform - an SS corporal, by the insignia - which at least helped with the next part of my plan. He was still cursing in German when I crept up behind him and broke his neck.

I quickly stripped the body - never the most pleasant of experiences - and pulled on the uniform, throwing my own clothes into my pack, and tucking the Browning in the glove compartment. Both the sleeves and the trousers were a little short, but it was close enough for my purposes. Perhaps the gods were smiling on my endeavours that morning. I concealed the body off the road, then glanced inside the car. On the passenger seat was a courier pouch. I checked the boot and was relieved that the spare tire was in good condition and there were both a jack and a small toolkit in there, then began replacing the flat. As I was tightening the final nuts, I heard another engine - a truck, I guessed - and realised that my disguise was about to get tested.

The truck was a standard troop carrier. Three men in the front. Probably twenty in the back. They pulled over when they saw me, and the guy who'd been riding shotgun climbed down and demanded to know what I was doing. In my best German, I explained that I'd been carrying dispatches and got a flat. He asked if I needed help, but I politely declined. Obviously convinced by my story, after he had given me and the car the once over, he climbed back into the truck and they drove on. Five minutes later I was done with fixing the tyre and got into the driver's seat.

Out of curiosity, I opened the dispatch pouch and rifled through it. Most of the messages were unsealed and seemed pretty standard, orders for lower ranking officers and their men, although three of them were addressed to the head of Einsatzgruppe 4, one Standartenführer Günter Schäfer, in Tosno - the largest town in the area - and were sealed. I debated just ripping them open, but decided that it would be unwise in case my disguise was tested again. Later perhaps. For now, I started the engine, put it into gear and drove.

The road took me through a combination of wooded, lightly-populated areas, and farmland with more substantial settlements. As far as I could tell, reaching my destination would eventually involve turning right in a village called Stroyeniye, maybe three miles before Tosno, then heading south for another mile or so and somehow getting off the road to the left. Theoretically, that meant I shouldn't have to worry about going through Tosno itself, if the map was accurate, which suited me fine if, as it appeared from the dispatches, it was Einsaztgruppe-4's forward base.

The closer I got to Tosno, the more traffic there was on the road, and I began seeing patrols. I kept driving carefully and steadily, all the while counting down the miles to the right turn. In Stroyeniye itself, within sight of the junction, I came to a roadblock, manned by half a dozen young Waffen-SS soldiers, who looked to have an average age of about nineteen. I put on my game face and thanked the goddess that I had at least a superficial resemblance to the man whose identity I had taken. ID photos were never known for great reproduction.

When I reached the front of the queue, I handed my credentials over, and then sat back and looked relaxed. Appearing tense would get me killed far faster than if I acted like I was supposed to be there. As it turned out, I needn't have worried. The soldiers just took a cursory glance at my stolen ID and then waved me through. As they did, it was obvious to me that they were nervous. Maybe because this was partisan territory, and they were somewhat out in the open. I thanked them, exchanged salutes, and went about my way, turning right shortly thereafter and heading down the road. I checked the milometer and after I'd counted off just under a mile, I started looking for the turning to the left which would lead me to where I believed Wolf was. Even then, I nearly missed it, as it was little more than a farm track into the pine trees.

What the heck was he doing down a farm track?

The track was just wide enough to accommodate a single large vehicle, like a tractor or a truck, but at least there was clinker on the surface which gave a slightly better ride than it might have done. However, I wasn't going to manage more than about 5mph. I bumped my way down it as quickly as I could, well aware that the trees on either side could hide a multitude of partisans if they'd felt so inclined, which caused the skin on the back of my neck to crawl. However, eventually the track came out of the woods and opened onto a cleared area which was probably a small holding. Or at least it had been. Now, it looked like ground zero of a mortar attack.

The burned out remains of a German troop carrier were on display on the grass in front of a small, single-storey stone building, and I could see fallen bodies in feldgrau surrounding it. The building itself was missing most of its roof, with just a few tiles and beams still reaching upwards, and off to one side were the remains of a couple of long burned out wooden outbuildings. I stopped just inside the tree line and pulled off the track, then turned off the engine and got out of the car. I slung the backpack over my shoulders, got out the Browning, and proceeded cautiously on foot.

What hit me first was how quiet it was. There wasn't even any birdsong, despite it being around nine in the morning by then. As I moved closer, the itchy feeling on the back of my neck returned, and I felt my hackles rising. Something was very wrong here - over and above the obvious. About twenty yards before I reached the farmyard, I reached the first bodies, and was surprised to find that rather than being blown away from the troop carrier by the force of the explosion which had obviously destroyed it, the soldiers' throats had been cut.

Sentries take by surprise? But then why hadn't the men by the truck come to their aid? And equally, if that truck had been destroyed first, how could the sentries not have realised? They had to have been attacked simultaneously. It had the hallmarks of the kind of operation I'd run with the resistance in my SOE days, when timing would have been key. But if that was the case, how had the partisans known that there was a squad of German soldiers here? It didn't seem to be a regular barracks: there were no signs of long-term occupation. It was as if a truckload of soldiers had just arrived here, and then been blown to bits.

Far too aware that I was wearing a German uniform, so that if the Russians were still here, they probably wouldn't ask questions first, I made a cautious circuit of the site. There was one other track, leading in the opposite direction to the one I had come down, back into the trees. The sentries set to guard that were also dead, although this time it looked as if they had run towards the explosion and been shot down.

Once I was certain I was alone, I checked the bodies by the truck one by one, looking for the man I'd come to find, and it quickly became obvious to me that every single one was dead. Those which hadn't been killed by the explosion had either died in the ensuing gun battle, or been systematically murdered, their throats cut. I guessed they'd been dead for less than twelve hours, which roughly tied up with the attack on me the evening before. Surely someone should have heard all of this? We weren't that far from Tosno. Why had no-one else come to investigate?

Feeling sick to the stomach, I crossed towards the main building, and as I did, the itchy feeling began to get worse. Whatever had happened out in the courtyard, something infinitely worse had happened in that building.

From the outside, the main farmhouse it looked as if it had been abandoned for some years: the roof had largely fallen victim of the passage of time, with the explosion having been the final straw. Very few beams remained in place, skeletal against the sky. The door was off its hinges, so I stepped carefully inside, into what must have been a large combined living room/kitchen. As I did, the bad feeling I'd been experiencing ratcheted up to eleven, as I realised that I was sensing the psychic stench of a black ritual. Had Laurence's suspicions had been right? Was "Wolf" was in bed with Ritter's group? As I accepted the possibility that I could have been so very wrong about him, my heart sank.

I looked around and saw a number of bodies between myself and the fireplace. At the far end, I saw fallen beams, tiles and stones from the top of the wall, which had presumably been dislodged by the explosion. I advanced slowly, keeping an ear out for the creaking which might indicate that more of the wall was likely to come down. The three bodies closest to me looked like sentries. Their backs were to the fireplace, as if they had been guarding something or someone, and it looked like they had died in a gunfight. A fourth man had tried to join them, and had been shot down as he ran. I knelt beside them and rolled them over. None of them were the man I'd come to find.

Behind them was the source of the psychic stench: a ritual circle cast in a suspiciously red-brown medium. There was another dead soldier, also unknown to me, lying just outside the circle itself with his throat cut. He had obviously died before the others - a couple of ricochets had hit him, but I guessed he had already been lying there when they did. How had the sentries reacted to one of their compatriots being killed like a dog to power whatever the heck it was had been done here?

The last body which was immediately evident was lying in the centre of the circle. An upturned bowl was on the floor beside him, on a black cloth, with a dried brown stain soaking into it. It looked like it had been knocked off the small, overturned brazier by a fallen beam, and now-dead coals had burned into the cloth. The beam had broken the plane of the circle, as had a number of smashed tiles which were lying underneath it. Despite being no longer complete, the malign energies from the circle were still strong, and they were also familiar. This was the origin of whatever had hit me the night before, but if I wanted to figure out exactly what that was, I would to have to clean up after the bastard who had performed the ritual in the first place.

I moved towards to the circle, to see if I could recognise said bastard. He was turned towards the debris left by the roof fall, and as I moved closer I saw a neat bullet wound in the middle of his forehead, and a small pool of blood around it. An SS officer's dagger was clasped in his right hand, blood on the blade, which I guessed he had been using as an athame. I let out the breath I hadn't realised I was holding when I didn't recognise him. But who was he? He was wearing feldgrau, like the others, but something was off. I spent a moment or two trying to figure out what it was, and eventually came to the conclusion that he was Ahnenerbe, not Einsatzgruppen, unlike the rest of the dead here. His rank insignia marked him as a Standartenführer. Given what he'd been doing, my guess was that he was one of Ritter's people.

So where on Earth was Wolf? Had he even ever been here? And if so, what had I missed?

I looked carefully at the heap of fallen masonry, behind the black Adept, and realised there was another body, partly buried under fallen beams, masonry and dust, lying on his left side. I moved carefully around the circle, avoiding touching it, to take closer look, moving various loose beams and bits of masonry out of the way to get to him. Once I could see him clearly, I recognised the pale face and the sandy brown hair, which was caked with blood from a head wound that had obviously bled like crazy. The main non sequitur, was the drawn Luger beside his right hand. More importantly, his throat hadn't been cut. Maybe the Russians had assumed he was already dead.

I knelt down beside him, hoping to find a pulse, but as I reached towards his neck, I felt a tingling sensation, as if I was touching magical wards. They were rudimentary, and felt to be in tatters, but as the body underneath them hadn't actually been crushed by the falling masonry, despite initial appearances, they had obviously offered him some kind of protection. As I touched him, he groaned quietly, and I felt him flinch.

"Bloody Hell, Wolf," I said, sitting back on my haunches.

"Mihai?" he said, very quietly, in German, and as he did, he opened his eyes and looked at me, "you came?"

His recognition spurred me into action. I cleared off the loose stones and started trying to shift the beams that were pinning him: one across the ribcage, and another trapping his right ankle. I had always been stronger than my peers, but this was going to be a challenge, especially given the risk of further roof falls. I tackled the one pinning his chest first, managing to lever it up with a more solid piece of fallen wood, enough that it took the pressure off his ribs, and then tucked a couple of fallen stones from under the end to relieve the weight. Immediately, he began breathing more easily.

Then I considered his right ankle. The beam had smashed into it, and I couldn't get a good idea what state it was in, given that it was still enclosed in the uniform jackboot so beloved of SS officers, but from the fact that he flinched when I accidentally knocked it, I guessed all was not well. Still, the dodgy footwear was doing a better job of keeping the ankle immobile than anything I could have rigged up. I just hoped that enough circulation had been retained for it not to have started to succumb to gangrene.

"I have to try to move the beam now," I said, "when you feel the pressure release, try to pull it free."

I placed my handy lever under the beam beside his ankle, and then started to lift. It was a lot harder - obviously this one was more firmly wedged. However, after much straining, I managed to raise it far enough that it was no longer resting on the broken bone.

"Now."

He moved quickly, letting out a cry of pain as he did, and the moment he was clear, I let the beam go. It crashed back down, and I heard an ominous creaking from the remaining wall. Reaching for reserves of strength I hadn't realised I had, I moved the rest of the masonry around him, and then pulled him clear. As I did, it became obvious that more than just his leg was hurting him. He probably had cracked ribs, and was heavily bruised from the masonry, along with everything else, and it was possible he had internal injuries. He cried out again as his wounded ankle knocked against one of the beams, but soon he was lying on clear ground beside the circle.

"Right, let's get out of here," I said, once I was done.

"No," he replied, his tone urgent, "you can't leave Kramer's handiwork like that. You have to close it down."

He nodded in the direction of the circle a combination of fear and determination on his face.

"Bollocks," I cursed, but I knew he was right. Even if it hadn't been somehow connected to what had happened to me the evening before, as a servant of the Light, I was obliged to make sure no-one could be harmed any further by it.

I swung him up into a fireman's lift, flinching as I heard him gasp in pain, and crossed to the door. I checked outside, listening for any signs of life, but it was still as quiet as the grave. Taking that to mean that the Russians hadn't come back, I made my way across to the car, and once I was there, I helped him into the back seat. Then I grabbed my pack, knowing that it contained various bits and pieces I was going to need to close down the black ritual, and headed back inside the building to set to work.

It was a nasty business, made infinitely worse by the fact that a fellow human being had died, and his blood used in the ritual. I spent a few moments beside his victim, saying a blessing for his soul: even if he was SS, he didn't deserve to die like that. Then I crossed to the circle and shifted the beam that had broken it out of the way, and started to dismantle the Working. Once I could safely cross the plane of the circle, I reached the body. The single bullet hole in his forehead, just above his eyebrows, seemed far neater than the Russians would have done. Puzzled, I looked around me, trying to judge where the bullet had come from, and my eyes lighted on Wolf's Luger. Leaving that for a moment, I set about purifying the tools and components Kramer had used, and finally, once that was done, I heaped everything into the centre along with the bodies of both murderer and victim, intending to set fire to the lot of it once we were ready to leave.

By the time I had finished, I felt physically sick, and rather than fight it, I got it out of my system. Once I was done, I pulled my water bottle out of my pack, took a drink and cleaned myself up. Then I cast a fatigue banishing spell on myself, before collecting Wolf's Luger from where it had fallen.

When I returned to the car, he was sitting in the rear doorway, staring blankly towards the farmhouse, a haunted, pained look in his eyes. I couldn't help thinking that he looked much younger than his thirty-two years, and I found myself feeling strangely protective towards him. My reaction startled me. After all, I hardly knew the man. And yet, despite all logic and common sense, here I was in Russia, come to find him. And as I had the night before, when we'd made contact, I felt that I should know him. Or, perhaps more likely, as Laurence had suggested, I had known him in a previous life.

No doubt, the opportunity to explore that one would come later, if we both got out of Russia alive.

I handed him the Luger butt first, and he slipped into its holster with the ease of practice. As he did, my eyes met his.

"What happened in there?" I asked him, in English.

"I rather think I resigned," he said, with a shrug.

"I rather think you're right. But that doesn't answer my question."

"Ritter sent Kramer here to try and trap you," he said, quietly, "I was the bait."

"Go on."

"You know I met him at Baneasa airport."

"I assumed he'd ordered your presence there."

He nodded, before continuing.

"He demanded my initial report, then made a phone call to the Athanee Palace. He ordered your rooms sealed until he got there, and once he did, he searched them very thoroughly, combing them for anything you might have left behind. I think he picked up a few bits and pieces. Once he was satisfied, he stayed around until I had completed my investigation and made my arrests. Then he ordered me to accompany him back to Berlin. I was reassigned to the Kripo, and thought that was that. But about a month later, they came for me in the night."

"Gestapo?"

"Looked like it...but I wasn't taken to Prinz Albrecht Strasse. They drugged me, and when I woke up I was in a stone cell. Wherever it was, the place felt very, very bad. Over the next few days, Ritter interrogated me, to find out everything he could about my dealings with you."

"And knowing that bastard, he wasn't gentle about it," I said, quietly.

"No." He paused for a moment, then continued. "I'm sorry, Mihai. The only way I was going to get out of there was if I told him what he wanted to know."

"I understand better than you realise."

"So I've come to believe. Eventually, after about a week, the interrogation stopped. I was drugged again, and when I woke up I was in the infirmary in Berlin. I asked how I got there, and was told that the transfer order had been signed by my father. He's retired now, but he's still influential. I was allowed home a couple of days later, but suspended from duty, which gave me time to look into why Ritter might be interested in you. It wasn't easy, but I'm a good investigator."

"Did you come to any conclusions?"

"That Ritter has hated you for a long time. For far longer than I could find any reference to the existence of Mikael Cuijper. In his rantings when he was interrogating me, he sometimes mentioned another name. Ian Cushing. That gave me somewhere else to look, and I eventually found an arrest warrant for a Captain Ian Cushing, aka SOE agent Astor, on charges of terrorism, espionage, murder, aiding fugitives from the Third Reich, and activities incompatible with a diplomatic position. The warrant was signed by Kasimir Ritter, and looked to have been slipped into the files after the fact. Is that who you really are?"

I nodded.

"I thought so. Anyway, I obviously wasn't as careful in my investigations as I thought I was being, because it wasn't very long until my posting to Einsatzgruppe-4 came through."

"So where does Kramer fit in?"

"He arrived in Tosno about three weeks ago, as Ritter's personal representative, having been charged with arranging your capture. After all, people disappear in Russia all the time. He ordered me to contact you, on the back of your offer in Bucharest. I tried to put him off... to persuade him that you'd just made a throwaway comment about coming to find me. He said something very odd in return. That you would know my soul, and that you would come. Strangely, it tied up with something Ritter had said to me while he was interrogating me. That I would be the link to draw you to him. Kramer made me write the card, and cut my hand to leave blood on it."

"Do you know why?"

"For the same reason why Ritter wanted to search your hotel room, I think. An arcane connection, Kramer called it."

"How much do you know about the occult?"

"My father was in the Ahnenerbe, and he has acquired a lot of books on the subject. Occasionally, when I was younger, he forgot to lock his office. As rebellious teenagers do, I played around with some of what I read, and was rather surprised at how naturally it came to me."

"Do you have any idea how dangerous that was?"

"I didn't then. I have more of an idea now. And in hindsight, a lot of it was pretty nasty stuff. But I did figure out how to throw up a ward...and that saved my life in there," he answered, nodding towards the building.

"Indeed it did. Go on."

"Kramer arranged to come out here, to a quiet location, and ordered the powers that be to leave us alone for forty-eight hours while he did what he had to do. He figured that would be enough time to lure you here. He brought me along, guarded by one of the men, who I'm pretty sure had orders to shoot me the moment the ritual was done. Then he set up the summoning, killing Rochus to power it and incorporating an arcane connection to you to try to draw you to him."

"And yet, somehow you managed to warn me."

"I didn't really know what I was doing. But from what I remembered of father's books, if he could contact you, and I could piggyback onto that, perhaps I could get a message through. Tell you not to come. But shortly after we made contact, the partisans hit us. My guard decided that discretion was the better part of valour, and ran for the door. I was going to follow, when I saw a couple of tiles fall and break the circle where Kramer was working. It rebounded on him, and he let the ritual go, to avoid frying his brain. I took the opportunity and shot him, but then the bloody roof came down and I was trapped. I was drifting in and out of consciousness when you reached for me the second time. But as Kramer was dead, and that threat was gone, I asked you for help...and the rest you know."

He lapsed into silence, and I took the opportunity to break out a couple of ration bars and my water bottle. Then I spent a few minutes and the rest of the water cleaning the blood out of his hair, to see how bad the head wound was. As I'd suspected, it was shallow and had just bled a lot. There didn't look to be any major damage.

"So what now?" he said, finally.

I spread the map out on the boot, and he dragged himself upright, leaning heavily on the car, so as to keep the weight off his ankle.

"Our pick-up is here..." I said, indicating the site on the map, "...at midnight. So we've got about twelve hours to get there. Any idea what's down the other track?"

"It's a logging track. Mostly dirt, just wide enough for the trucks," he answered, tracing its approximate path, "It goes straight through the trees, and it eventually reaches a metalled road. That will get you back to the Novgorod road about...here."

The main road itself ran dead straight, going roughly south-east until it reached Chudovo, when it turned sharply towards Novgorod, but it did pass through a number of towns and villages on the way. Our destination was off the road to the east about three-quarters of the way to Chudovo.

"How obvious is a car with German markings going to be on that road?"

"We run couriers as far as Chudovo...but that's as far as we get. The Russian army has fought back to line of the Volkhov River. We have checkpoints in Lyuban and Trubnikov."

"How safe would we be?"

"We lose one courier in twenty. There are partisans in this area, and they've been known to target German vehicles - both cars and trucks."

"Not ideal, but the other alternative is going back to Tosno and stealing something else, which would both waste time and be risky. So if we can get away with this, it would be better."

"True enough. And you're driving. But I'd suggest, if you want to do this, put on my jacket. If you do meet any patrols, they're less likely to argue with a captain than a corporal. I don't suppose you brought a change of clothes?"

I reached into the backpack and pulled out the clean set I'd brought with me, and then crossed to the old pump beside one of the burned out barns and refilled my water bottle while he changed. By the time I got back to the car, his uniform was lying on the ground beside it.

"I had to slit the leg seams," he said, with an apologetic shrug, as he reached down and handed me the jacket, "I didn't want to risk taking that boot off, because I'm pretty sure it's the only thing keeping my ankle from swelling up like a balloon."

"Not a problem," I answered.

"My ID is in the inside pocket, and you'll need these," he said, and passed me the belt with the Luger's holster on it and his officer's dagger on a hanger at the side. I quickly put both onto my own belt - left handed, rather than right - so that if I was stopped by a patrol, at least I'd have the correct props to pull this off. But only if I was alone. Which led me to the next logical problem.

"You're going to have to ride in the boot."

"I'd come to that conclusion."

"Let me get rid of this lot first."

I picked up what was left of his uniform, plus the jacket I had been wearing, took the bundle inside and added it to the pile I had already made in there. Then I put a match to the lot, fanning the flames and offering an incantation to the goddess that it would burn brightly. Soon the material of the uniforms had caught, and it was time I was out of there, in case someone saw the smoke through the trees.

Back at the car, he'd already opened the boot, punched out the lock so he could breath, and was trying to figure out how best to squeeze his near-six foot frame into it, without twisting the broken ankle. I pulled everything else out and threw it into the rear foot well, covered by a handy car rug, putting the old courier pouch on the front seat beside me. Then I helped him into the space, and latched the hatch down with a twist of wire once he was inside.

I checked my watch and confirmed that at this point I still had nearly eleven hours to get to the rendezvous point. It would be plenty of time if we didn't hit trouble. I got into the driver's seat, started the engine and drove around the burned out truck to the secondary track. It was a surprisingly direct route, but Wolf hadn't been kidding when he'd said it was mostly dirt. Still, at least it didn't seem to have rained recently, so I wasn't having to fight through mud. I drove cautiously, well aware of my passenger and trying to make the journey as smooth as possible for him. It seemed to take an eternity, but eventually it did, indeed, widen out into a more substantial road. I kept on going, and after another half hour or so, I came in sight of what had to be the Novgorod-St Petersburg road. I checked the map, and then turned onto it to the right.

My plan was to follow the road to Zuevo, and then cut cross-country. At some point I would need to ditch the car, and we would be on Shanks's pony, but I wanted to delay that as long as possible, given that Wolf was in no fit state to hike any distance. Knowing in advance about the checkpoints was a big help, as it gave me time to get my story straight.

The road was fast and straight, but surprisingly, it wasn't particularly busy - certainly not as busy as I would have expected for such a major route. However, the occasional craters at the side of the road - sometimes actually damaging the roadway - gave testament to the fact that it was in disputed territory, and the partisans were active there, which presumably discouraged people from using it. The vehicles I saw were mainly either German army , or local farm trucks,.

When I reached the checkpoint at Lyuban, it was staffed by a similar group of nervous youngsters as Stroyeniye. I feigned confidence as I reached into the pocket for Wolf's ID, hoping that my attitude would mean that they didn't look at it too closely, and it seemed to work. They gave it a cursory check, asked me what I was doing - so I indicated the courier pouch - and then waved me through with a sharp salute. I returned it with what I hoped was the casual arrogance of a superior officer, and continued on my way. The process was pretty much repeated at Trubnikov, and by then I was feeling confident that we were going to get away with this.

Right up to the point when a mortar exploded about fifty yards in front of me. There was a large bang, and suddenly I was fighting for control of the car. I swerved to the left to avoid the debris from the crater which had just opened up on the verge. As I did, I heard rounds peppering the rear window. I floored the accelerator, trying to get away from there as quickly as possible, but not before the abused window behind me exploded inwards, and a pair of bullets whistled past my ear and pockmarked the windscreen. I focused on the road, to the exclusion of everything else, dodging a lorry coming along in the opposite direction, and then hauled the wheel to get us back into the right carriageway. It was fifteen minutes before I slowed down, finally certain that no-one was actually following me. I pulled off the road and leaned across the steering wheel until my heart stopped racing.

Then I remembered Wolf. I opened the boot of the car, to find him looking bruised, battered and decidedly sick.

"Are you alright?"

In response, he half sat, and threw up beside me. Then he cursed roundly in German and looked embarrassed. I reached into the body of the car for my pack, got the water bottle out and offered it to him.

"Fucking partisans," he said in English, as he used it to wash the taste from his mouth, "where are we?"

"A couple of miles from Zuevo, I think."

"How far to the extraction point from here?"

"As the crow flies, I'd guess about seven miles."

"Help me out of this bloody box. You won't need to be a courier again."

I did as I was bid, and got him into the back seat of the car. As I did, I noticed that his skin was now slightly flushed, and there was a sheen of sweat on his forehead.

"You're running a fever."

"Not much I can do about that. We need to get going."

"There's something I need to do first."

With that, I got my athame out of my pack, slit my palm and started pulling up a ward around the car...something which would hopefully mean that no-one noticed that it was riddled with bullet holes. It wasn't something I'd tried before, although I knew it was theoretically possible, but desperation is a great encourager. I anchored it with a few drops of my blood at each corner - headlights and tail lights - and then got back behind the wheel.

"When this is over," he said, quietly, "perhaps you can teach me some of those tricks."

"When this is over, you need to learn them," I answered, and started the engine.

As quickly as I dared, I drove on down the road, and hung a left in Zuevo. By my calculations, I could follow that road to relatively close to our destination. The landing site was about halfway between another small settlement, and what looked like a pretty substantial open pit mine. The area looked wooded, so hopefully that would hide the light of the flares from anyone who might come to investigate. Eventually, I reached the point where I would have to ditch the car. I pulled off the road into the ever-present trees and turned off the engine.

"From here on in, we're on foot."

"How far," he said, his voice noticeably weaker than it had been earlier, and I could see that his condition had deteriorated.

"A couple of miles, but the terrain could be difficult."

"I don't think I can make it."

"Yes you can," I answered, firmly, "I didn't come all this way to leave you behind now."

I looked around to see if there was anything that I might be able to rig a crutch with, and my eyes lighted on a sturdy looking, fallen branch. Where it had broken off was slightly slanted, which would do as an armrest, but otherwise it was relatively straight. I brought it back to the car, tied some oily rags I'd found in the boot around it and offered it to him. Then I found a couple of smaller pieces of wood that I could use to splint his ankle, to give it more support, and began tying them in place. Once that was done, I repeated the fatigue banishing spell on both of us. I was beginning to notice that I'd only slept two hours the night before, and the purification ritual, followed by the avoidance spell, had taken more out of me than I'd realised. Moreover, the adrenalin burst as I'd got us away from the mortar had also had an effect.

"Ready?"

"As I'll ever be. And Mihai..."

"Yes."

"If I don't make it through this...thank you for trying."

"You'll make it. Believe me."

Once I felt better, I stuffed the Browning and the rest of the bits of pieces from the foot well into my trusty backpack and grabbed the bag of flares, but as I did, I had an idea. I took off the uniform jacket, along with the dagger on its hanger and the holster, sans the Luger - which I stuffed in the back of my belt - and threw them into the front seat, along with the courier case, although I slipped the sealed dispatches in my pack. Then I got out my camo jacket and put it on.

"Anything else you don't want to take with you?"

"I don't think so."

"Okay."

I struck a flare, and threw it onto the seat. Hopefully the flames from it would destroy the interior - and with it anything that could link the car to us - but stop short of blowing the petrol tank. Once it was burning nicely, we set off.

Despite his worries that he couldn't make it, I was surprised at the reserves of strength that my companion managed to draw on. At least initially. He was obviously struggling and in pain, but he didn't complain, just pressed onwards with myself helping him when he seemed like he was flagging. I kept us both going using a combination of mundane and arcane means, well aware that once we were safely airborne, I was going to pay the price for the latter.

We finally reached the rendezvous about an hour before sunset. It was around 7.30pm, and we were both dirty and tired. Moreover, Wolf had been disturbingly quiet for the last half a mile or so, and the fever was more obvious. The exfil site itself was a small area of grass, rather than woodland, with a brook chuckling to one side. It looked barely long enough for a small plane. I hoped Gallagher was as good as she'd led me to believe.

There wasn't much natural shelter, but we set ourselves down in the best we could find - a hollow below a thicker stand of trees. I broke out the last of my rations an offered half to Wolf, but he shook his head. He just took some water, and then curled up onto his side, and was quickly asleep. I took advantage of the last of the light to check out the grass for the smoothest area, laying flares to light the path, but not lighting them as yet. I looked enviously at my companion as I got back to our makeshift camp, but I knew that I couldn't afford to join him in sleep, in case I missed the deadline.

Sunset was a brilliant, fiery red, but the shadows lengthened quickly among the pine trees. The night was mild, although from the clear sky it seemed likely that it would get a lot cooler later. However, the next time I checked, Wolf had begun to shiver. I threw the car rug over him, and made sure that the water bottle was beside him, in case he needed it. Every fifteen minutes or so, I crawled out of the shelter, and did a circuit of the field, both to keep myself awake, and to make sure that no-one was sneaking up on us. Thankfully, nothing disturbed us but the occasional owl.

At 23.45, I stirred myself once more, and crossed to where I had laid out the flares. Then I stood and waited, listening for the first sound of an engine breaking the silence. It seemed like forever, but eventually, I caught the sound of something on the wind. I struck the first flare, and then used it to light the others. Once that was done, I went back to where Wolf was lying, and tried to wake him. He groaned slightly, but didn't come around, and I realised that somewhere along the line, he had slipped into unconsciousness, rather than just sleep. Cursing, I collected everything up from our shelter, and then slung him over my shoulder in a fireman's lift. By the time I was ready, the plane was coming in to land. It bounced two or three times, and then came to a halt about fifteen feet from the trees. I approached cautiously, as the cab opened, and a familiar silhouette stepped out.

"You made it then," she said, brightly, "give me a hand turning her around, would you?"

"Can I get him in the back first?" I asked, indicating my burden, and she moved to help me.

"Do I want to know?"

"He's an agent whose cover got blown," I answered, and she nodded, as if that was all she needed to hear. We manhandled him into the passenger compartment, where she'd managed to arrange a mattress. I tied him onto it using the cargo webbing hung at strategic locations around the cabin, so he wouldn't be move around in flight.

I climbed back onto the ground, and then froze. I thought I'd heard something, off in the distance. Voices.

"Now would be a good time..." she said, indicating the plane, and we put our backs into turning it around, so she could take off. By the time we climbed into the cab - me taking the co-pilot's seat again - the voices were just on the edge of the clearing. She gunned the engine, and began the run-up, then pulled up just in time to get over the trees. As she did, we heard gunfire. The plane bucked slightly, but then we were in clear air.

"Nicely done."

"Not one of my better take-offs," she said, with a shrug, "but it'll do. As long as they didn't hit anything vital, we should be in Helsinki in about an hour."

"Refuelling?"

"Not enough range to get back to London."

I lapsed into silence and let her fly. I ached, and was physically, mentally and spiritually exhausted, so I quickly gave up any pretence of trying to stay awake. I dropped off, and soon found myself dreaming. Wherever I was, it was a long time ago: the clothes I was wearing were obviously medieval, but good quality, as if I was some kind of noble or land owner. It was a warm, sunny day, and I was hunting with a friend in what looked like English woodland. I glanced at him, and realised that he wore Wolf's face. We rode in the companionable silence of two people who trusted each other implicitly, before a stag was sighted and we gave chase. Then the images became darker, and instead of deciduous woodland, we were chasing through pine forest, and our clothing was more modern. Wolf tried to rein in, but before he could control his horse we had burst out into a clearing. Before us, on a raised mound, was a dark castle with three towers. Standing on the drawbridge was Kasimir Ritter, and as he saw us, an evil smile crossed his face.

"So you've found each other again...if only for a little while," he said, coldly, "you should take comfort in the fact that at least this time you will die together...neither of you will be left behind to mourn."

Then he loosed some kind of energy bolt at us, and I slammed back to consciousness to the sound of alarms.

"What happened?"

"We've been hit."

"Where are we?"

"Over the North Sea, losing fuel."

"What happened to Helsinki?"

"You slept through it. I'm going to get us in to Groningen. It's about thirty miles"

"What the Hell hit us over the North Sea?"

"Don't care right now," she answered, and returned to fighting with the controls, "but if you want to do something useful, give me a hand."

Between us we managed to wrestle the plane under control, sending a mayday to the tower at the small commercial airport in Groningen, and we were given an approach. We forced the plane to co-operate and after what seemed like forever, the running lights came into view. I took my hands off the controls and let her take us in, and a short while later, we hit the tarmac and came to an abrupt stop. Moments later, we became aware of fire engines spraying us with foam.

"You get out...I'll fetch Wolf."

Without arguing, she opened the door of the cab and jumped down, while I worked my way backwards. That was when I saw the six-inch hole in the fuselage, about a foot from Wolf's head. It was as if something very hot had melted through the skin of the plane, and I realised I hadn't just dreamed the bolt of energy Ritter had thrown at us. I untied the restraints around my charge, kicked open the jump door and dragged him clear, and willing hands helped me get him away from the plane.

"Any landing you walk away from, eh?" Gallagher said to me, handing me my backpack as we stood aside, and waited for the fire engines to cover the whole area with foam.

"I'm sorry about your plane."

"She's fixable," she answered, with a sigh, "but I'll make sure to send you the bill."

The other emergency services joined us as soon as the fire captain declared the plane safe. Wolf was loaded into the back of an ambulance, and Gallagher and I were escorted to the airport security station to give our statements. In truth, there wasn't much I could tell them. I said that the flight had been a private hire, and dropped a couple of names in the British government who could vouch for me. The main problem was explaining why there a badly injured German in the back of the plane.

They left me contemplating my situation in an interrogation room for a good couple of hours before I was finally released. As I was escorted through the terminal building, onto the tarmac the first face I saw was that of Matthew Gifford. Gallagher was standing nearby, looking rather more subdued than normal.

"I had a rather interesting conversation with Brigadier Rathbone yesterday," he said, mildly, "he mentioned that it would be advisable for me to meet your flight. Of course, he was expecting you to land at RAF Northolt...where he had instructed Miss Gallagher to bring you."

"We had a slight change of plan."

"So I hear. Your...friend?...is being transferred to the plane I came over in. Miss Gallagher will be staying here to see to the repairs to her own plane. Walk with me..."

He indicated a small, government issue private jet off to one side, and I fell in beside him. Our police escorts tracked us every step of the way.

"Is he alright?"

"They aren't sure. Apparently he's running a high fever, and they suspect he's developing septicaemia. They were very unwilling to transfer him back here from the hospital after they made the initial diagnosis."

"Why did you make them?"

"Because you have some questions to answer in London, and knowing you as I do - having been your official handler for eight years, since the Brigadier retired..." the stress on retired made it quite clear to me that he was less than pleased with my having left him out of the loop on this one, "...having gone all the way to Russia to find this Captain Ulrich, you would have refused to come back without him. What I don't know is why, and Rathbone wasn't sharing."

"He saved my life in Bucharest," I said, with a shrug, "I owed him."

"The business with Jenny Milton?"

"Yes."

"I'm sorry. Anything else?"

"He wants to defect."

With a nod, Gifford lapsed into silence, obviously hoping that I'd say more, but I was too tired and felt too wrung out to even try. Instead, I followed him meekly onto the plane, and belted myself into one of the rather more comfortable seats than Gallagher's had been fitted with. I looked behind me, and saw that Wolf was strapped on a gurney, in the space where a couple of rows of seats had been taken out. A nurse was beside him, looking anxious, checking the drip going into his arm.

A short while later we were cleared for takeoff, and were airborne in minutes. The flight was short and mercifully uneventful. We touched down at Northolt a little after eight in the morning, to be met by Laurence, who was waiting on the tarmac.

"You found him then?" he asked, taking me aside as Gifford supervised unloading the gurney, before the ambulance crossed to the plane to take him away. As it did, the memory of my own arrival here, the day I first met Audrey, almost overwhelmed me. I was aware of Laurence talking to me, but it was a moment or two before I could hear him.

"Ian...are you alright?"

"Sorry. Drifted for a moment there.

"I hadn't realised from his picture how much he looks like you at that age."

"I suppose he does, in a way," I admitted, with a shrug, "but then, many people do. Or maybe it's the association with when I was brought home from Berlin."

"Is he one of us?"

"Yes, although what knowledge he has is self taught."

"But there is an arcane connection between you, isn't there?"

"I think so...something to do with the past, or our pasts, as you suspected. When we were en route, before we were shot down, I had a dream. He was in it. So was Ritter."

"Go on."

"Shortly before he tried to kill us - and I know in my gut that that was what happened - Ritter said the oddest thing. He said "At least this time you will die together...neither of you will be left behind to mourn." Do you have any idea what he meant?"

I saw him freeze, just for a moment, and I thought I saw a trace of sadness on his face. But then it was gone.

"There will be plenty of time to figure that out once he's well," he answered, with a shrug, neatly covering his lapse, "and in the meantime, you need to get some rest. He's in good hands...you know that first hand from your own experience here."

"Ian, I'll need to debrief you," Gifford said, coming over to where we were standing.

"I know..." I answered, wearily, "can it wait until tomorrow?"

He looked like he was going to protest, but then caught Laurence's eye, and sighed.

"I'll come and see you at the townhouse in the morning."

"Thank you."

"Come on, Ian. I'll give you a ride home," Laurence said, and we headed for his car.