“Don’t tell me that cad John Curtin is the new Prime Minister there.”
Harold Hartley was appalled at the prospect.
“I think you underestimate Mister Curtin.” Tarrant spoke somberly. “I believe he has every prospect of being an excellent Prime Minister whose leadership promises to serve Australia well. In his inaugural address to the Australian Parliament, he tore up the message from London and threw the pieces on the floor, saying ‘good riddance to bad rubbish.’ That won him much applause from the House.”
“That is a disgrace.” Cardew wattled furiously. “Who do those people think they are?”
“People who face a dilemma that is exactly equivalent to ours in form and content,” Lord Linlithgow said mildly. “They have reached their conclusion with regard to their own opinions and interests, just as we shall reach ours with regard to India’s needs and interests.”
“Maintaining the Imperial Connection is the only need or interest India should have.”
“‘Should have’ is a matter of opinion, Sir Richard. ‘Does have’ is another matter entirely. Let us not forget there is a moral aspect to this conundrum. Obeying the demands of London mean knuckling under to an accommodation with Nazi Germany and that thought is abhorrent to any civilized person. I have thought this matter over in great depth and I believe that we cannot, in conscience, do what Lord Halifax would have us do. In isolation, I would tend to believe that we should join Australia in our defiance of this order. But, we do not act in isolation. Let us not forget this is India and we should bear the interests and opinions of the Indian people in mind.”
“Why bother?” Cardew’ spoke derisively, an obvious sneer in his voice.
“Because this is their country, Sir Richard. We rule it in trust for them. Sir Martyn, you have spoken with Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru? How does the Congress Party see things?”
“As usual, Your Excellency, they want independence now, if not sooner. Within that framework, however, there are many divisions. Nehru is now of the opinion that knuckling under to this order would make any rapid attainment of independence most unlikely and unproductive if attempted. On the other hand, continuing the war, for a short time at least, would underline India’s independence and bring their dream within easy reach. That is an attractive prospect for them. After some discussions, Nehru has come to the opinion that, since India is now in the war, it should stay in. May I add that his own abhorrence of the Nazi regime was of some importance in him reaching that position.”
“Communist rabble-rouser.” Cardew’s sneer cut across the room and more than one head nodded in agreement with him.
“Where do Nehru’s political opinions finally reside, Sir Martyn?”
Lord Linlithgow spoke quietly while he marked down those who had nodded. They would need to be maneuvered out of the way.
“There is no doubt he is a socialist your excellency, one who believes that the best model for developing this country resides within the framework of large, state-run enterprises. He would fit very well within the Labour Party in that respect. But a communist? I do not think so. His guiding light is the future of India and all else takes second place to that. To be a Communist would mean that he would place the interests of international Communism over those of India and that he will not do. There are Communists in the Congress Party, of that I have little doubt, but they do not dominate its leadership. There are fascists also. I would name Subhas Chandra Bose as prime in their number. He is closer to the leading figures than any communist. I would suggest it is in our interest to support the existing Congress Party leadership and ensure that neither of those factions gains any significant power.”
Lord Linlithgow nodded. “So the Congress Party would support us in continuing the war?”
“Nehru asks for time, Your Excellency. Time to persuade those who hold different positions from his own of what lies at stake here. That would allow him to present his position as that of the Congress Party, rather than just a faction of it. I have an idea of how we can buy some time at least.”
“Pray tell?”
“I understand that the undersea telegraph lines are experiencing erratic problems at the moment. Some messages are being corrupted in transmission and I believe that this was one of them. It may possess real content that is quite different from the corrupted version we have received. We owe it to the responsibility of our positions here to ensure that we have received a true and fair copy. I suggest we return a ‘copy corrupt’ signal and ask for a retransmission.”
“Your Excellency, I object. This is a lie; a damnable lie.”
“I think not, Sir Richard. Can you prove to us, here and now, that the message we received was not corrupted in transmission?’ Lord Linlithgow paused before continuing, “I thought not. Sir Martyn is right. Whole sections of critical importance may have been omitted. It has happened before. I would remind you of the time when the text of the Holy Bible was corrupted in transmission and the word ‘not’ was omitted from the Seventh Commandment. Sir Martyn, do as you propose.”
“There’s one person who will know how to get this information used.”
Branwen felt like ducking for cover as she made the suggestion. Mentioning Phillip Stuyvesant to Loki was akin to pouring gasoline on an already-raging inferno. Why can’t these two grow up? Sometimes Branwen felt as if she wanted to take both of them quietly to one side and bang their heads together. To her astonishment, Loki nodded in agreement. “I hate to admit it, but you are almost certainly right. If we send this material over now, it will get lost at best. Nobody in authority knows who we are.”
“May the gods be praised for that.” Branwen spoke fervently.
“Right. But now that very anonymity is turned against us. To the world at large, we’re just bankers and traders.”
Loki shook his head. He had just returned from Germany. What he had seen there turned his stomach. The reason behind his trip was a simple one. Five years earlier, a member of his family by the name of Morrigan had been framed as a communist by a man Loki had trusted and left to the tender mercies of the Gestapo. That had left Loki with only one practical option. He had made a trip to Germany, found her and put a bullet into her head before she could talk. She would have talked, eventually, and there was far too much she could tell her interrogators. Loki knew that. He also knew that his rifle shot had been the only mercy she was likely to receive. On that trip, his eyes had been fixed on what he had had to do and he had ignored what lay in clear sight around him.
That hadn’t been the case on this trip. It had been purely a matter of revenge. He had found Odwin Noth, the man who had betrayed Morrigan. Loki had framed him as a communist agent and then killed him. Only, this time his eyes had been open and he had taken full measure of the German regime in a way that not even Kristallnacht had made clear. He had also achieved something else. He was a banker, a Swiss banker; Germany was a country where everybody in authority wanted a numbered Swiss bank account of their very own. That made him a sought-after guest; in so doing, he had been able to recruit people right across the entire spectrum of German industry. Loki never asked questions that seemed to have direct military or political significance; he was far too astute for that. Instead, he expressed interest in little things that seemed to have no direct relevance to anything much. What his contacts never realized was that each piece of data was a part of a jigsaw. When fitted together, they provided a picture of German industrial production and planning that was completely unmatched. Quietly, Loki was proud of what he had created. Not just because nobody had ever achieved so complete a picture of a nation’s industry at war before, but because even those who had helped prepare it never knew the product existed.