She decided to take another tack. She reached into her bag and pulled out the photos. She handed them to Kriegler and he flipped through them one by one. Then he paused and held up one of the photos.
“Marie,” the man said with a glint of recognition in his eye. He pointed to his face, a poorly healed scar. “She fought with her nails, here and here.” Leaving him a mark he could never erase. “But ultimately she did what we asked. Not to save her own life, but his.”
“Vesper?”
He nodded. “I shot him anyway.” Kriegler seemed emboldened now. “It wasn’t personal,” he added, his voice dispassionate. “I had no more use for him...or her either.”
“And Marie?” she asked, dreading the answer.
“She was put on a transport from Fresnes with other women.”
“When?”
“Late May.” Right after Julian had returned from London. So much sooner than Eleanor had imagined.
“So you had the radio by then?” He nodded. “But we were still receiving messages.” And transmitting them, she added silently. Every fear she’d had during the war was true.
“Messages from us. We got the first radio from Marseille, you see. But since London already knew that circuit was blown, there was no point in transmitting from it. So we played around with the frequencies until we found one that the Vesper circuit used. We were able to impersonate the operator to get London to transmit information to us.”
The radio game, just as Henri had said in Paris. Eleanor recalled her suspicions, the ways in which some of Marie’s transmissions had sounded just fine, others not at all like her. The latter, as she suspected, were actually being broadcasted by German intelligence. Eleanor had kept her concerns silent at first, and later when she had spoken they’d been brushed aside by the Director. But here they were now laid out in front of her as plainly as a winning hand of cards splayed on a table. If only she had acted on her suspicions and pushed harder with the Director to find out what was happening.
There was no time for guilt, though; her precious moments to question Kriegler were rapidly ticking by. “But how? I learned in Paris that you had the radios and were able to play them back to London. You didn’t have the security checks. How did you manage?”
“We didn’t think it would work.” A smile crossed his face and she held her hands down so as not to reach across and slap him. “There were so many ways the British would have seen through it. At first we thought they were just careless, preoccupied. Only later did we realize that someone in London actually wanted us to get the messages.”
“Excuse me? How can you say that?”
“In mid-May 1944, I had occasion to be away from headquarters. One of my deputies, a real dummkopf, got cocky. He sent a message to London acknowledging that we were on the other end of the line. When I found out, I had him court-martialed for treason.”
“Who in London, exactly?” Eleanor had sent many messages herself. But she surely didn’t know about the radio game.
“I have no idea. Someone knew and kept transmitting anyway.”
Eleanor’s mind reeled back over the people who had access to broadcast to Vesper circuit. Herself, Jane, the Director. It was a very small group, none of whom, she felt certain, would have done it.
Before Eleanor could ask further, Mick knocked at the door, gesturing for her to come out. “Time’s up,” he said when she stepped into the hall reluctantly. “Did you get what you were looking for?”
“I suppose.” Eleanor’s mind reeled at Kriegler’s assertion that the Germans had told London they had the radio. That London knew. She was aghast—and puzzled. She had been there at headquarters for every single day of the operation, and she had never imagined—much less heard—of such a thing.
Mick was watching her expectantly, waiting for the information he needed. She had forgotten, in her distress about the girls, to ask Kriegler the questions she had promised for Mick. But it didn’t matter. She’d had the answers he needed all along. “He confessed to the murder of Julian Brookhouse. Said that he shot him personally at SD headquarters in Paris in May 1944.”
Mick’s eyes widened. “You got all that in ten minutes?”
She nodded. “If he denies it tell him that I was secretly recording the conversation. And that I am prepared to testify against him at trial.” The first part was a lie; the latter was not.
Mick turned toward the cell. “I need to go in there and speak with him now, before the transport comes. If you don’t want to wait for me, I’ll have one of the orderlies drive you back to base.”
“I’ll wait,” she said. She had nothing but time now.
A few minutes later, Mick came out of the cell. “Kriegler asked to see you once more.” Surprised, she walked in to once again face the most evil man she had ever encountered.
“I’m going to cooperate with the Americans.” His expression was somber now, and she knew Mick had confronted him with the evidence about killing Julian. “But before I do, I want to help you.” It was a lie, she knew. He wanted the truth about the girls to go with him to his grave. Only there was fear in his eyes now. “If I do, will you put in a good word for leniency for me?”
“Yes.” She would never forgive Kriegler or let him walk free again. But a long life alone with his crimes seemed more punishing.
The German’s eyes glinted. He slid something across the table. It fell to the ground and he kicked it toward her. It was a small key. How he had managed to hang on to it through his arrest and interrogation was beyond her. “Credit Suisse in Zurich,” he said. “Box 9127.”
“What is it?” she asked.
“An insurance policy, so to speak,” he said cryptically. “Documents that hold the answers you’ve been looking for.” Eleanor’s heartbeat quickened. “I’ll never walk free again, but I will give you the answers for Marie and the other four I sent—and their daughters.” It was, perhaps, the smallest act of contrition.
Then something about his words stuck. “Did you say that there were five girls?” He nodded. “Are you certain?”
“They all left Paris together. I signed the order myself. One died when the train car exploded.”
Four should have arrived. “But the witness’s report only spoke of three girls. What happened to the other?”
“Never accounted for. There were a dozen ways she could have died. But for all I know she might be alive.”
Eleanor leaped up and burst from the jail cell, starting past Mick in a run.
Chapter Twenty-Eight