Then he came across a diagram that caused him to stop what he was doing. Staring at the cutaway drawing of a strange-looking aircraft, he suddenly realized that Wa Pruf 11 had moved far beyond mere rocketry.
This was not a missile. This was something else entirely.
Silver snapped a picture of the diagram, then turned a couple of pages and found another that appeared interesting, a global map with a squiggly line curving up and down across the outer surface, like something hopping across Earth’s atmosphere. He’d just finished photographing it when Gold’s mop fell to the hallway floor.
Silver glanced up, saw the other spy through the open door. Gold pointed to his ear, then down the hall toward the stairs. Someone was coming up.
The Minox’s frame counter told Silver that he had seven exposures left, but there was no time to use them. Under no circumstances could he let himself get caught in Dr. von Braun’s office. Silver hastily turned the report’s pages back to where the technical director had left them, then detached the measurement chain from the camera. He stuffed the chain in his pocket and slipped the Minox back into the brush handle. One last look to make sure that everything was the way he’d found it, then in four quick steps he was out of the office.
Silver had just retrieved his broom from where he’d left it against the wall when Lise Muller emerged from the stairway. Even before he saw von Braun’s secretary, Silver knew that it was her; when she walked, the low heels of her patent leather shoes made a distinctive tap-tap-tap sound with which he and Gold had become familiar. He still had the horsehair brush in his hand; stepping past Gold, whose back was to the approaching woman, he reached out to put the brush back in the janitor cart.
Then its cover fell off and the Minox dropped onto the floor.
In an instant, Silver realized what had happened. In his haste to get out of the office, he’d neglected to close the two catches that locked the brush’s hidden compartment. Fortunately, Gold was standing between the camera and the approaching secretary, but even as Silver squatted down to pick up the Minox, he knew that in another second she’d see…
“So what do you think of Fraülein Muller’s ass?” Gold said casually, speaking to Silver as if she weren’t there. “Wouldn’t you like to get your hands on that?”
Silver heard the secretary’s footsteps come to an abrupt halt. Glancing up to peer between Gold’s legs, he saw that Lise had half turned away, hands raised to her face to hide her embarrassment. Silver snatched up the Minox and stuffed it down the front of his coveralls. It had disappeared by the time Lise recovered enough of her dignity to face the two janitors again and clear her throat.
“Oh… hello, Fraülein.” Gold was the picture of deferential servitude as he looked around, seemingly noticing her for the first time. “Nice day, isn’t it?”
The secretary said nothing as she marched the rest of the way down the hall, her expression stony but her face bright red. She didn’t even glance at Silver as she stormed past them; he’d already picked up his brush and, surreptitiously replacing the handle cover, returned it to the cart. Lise’s shoes stamped against the bare wooden floor as she entered von Braun’s office. The door slammed shut behind her, and Gold started to let out his breath in relief, but Silver quickly raised a hand. Listening intently, he heard what he’d hoped to hear: the soft, metallic clank of the wall safe’s being shut.
The two men traded looks: Gold, an accusatory glare, Silver, an apologetic upward roll of his eyes. Once they were sure the hall was clear, Silver returned both the camera and the measuring chain to their hiding place. In moments, the brush was back where it belonged, and the two men returned to what they’d been doing.
Nonetheless, the blood had drained from Silver’s face, and not just because of the close call. What he’d seen in the classified document on Wernher von Braun’s office frightened him deeply.
The Minox film couldn’t get to England fast enough.
RENDEZVOUS IN PARIS
DECEMBER 24, 1941
Sometime during the morning, a Gestapo agent had taken up a position in the doorway of a café across the street from Yves Callon’s apartment. Callon spotted him almost as soon he got out of bed and looked out his kitchen window. Even from three floors up, it was impossible not to tell that the man in the charcoal overcoat, black scarf, and dark grey hat belonged to the secret police; he looked like a giant crow that had come to roost upon the sidewalk.
Callon wasn’t surprised. He’d half expected to be kept under surveillance once he returned to Paris for the holidays. The Nazis weren’t likely to take any chances with a French janitor who worked at one of their most secret research facilities, so it only made sense that they would dispatch a Gestapo agent to keep an eye on him. It was little comfort that he appeared to be bored and cold. Even if he wasn’t alert, he could be a serious impediment to the task that lay ahead.
As Yves puttered around his small, two-room apartment—washing his face and shaving, getting dressed, having a meager breakfast of coffee and a croissant—he wondered whether it might be wise to cancel the drop. If he waited another day or two, the Gestapo might give up and leave him alone. But he’d arrived in Paris by train early yesterday evening, and he was due to catch another train back to Germany the day after tomorrow. Waiting until tomorrow to make the drop would be problematic if the Gestapo was still watching him by then; some of his actions might seem peculiar if done on Christmas Day. And if he waited until the day after Christmas and tried to make the drop before going to the rail station, his contact might be at risk if he’d been followed, and the Gestapo noticed him going to the same place at the same time three days in a row.
So Yves had no choice. He had to make the drop today, despite the danger. He simply needed to be careful, for the slightest mistake could be fatal.
Callon kept an eye on the clock above his fireplace as he washed his breakfast dishes and put them away. At ten minutes to nine, he got ready to go. He avoided looking out the window as he pulled on his dark brown overcoat, woolen muffler, and cap. The Minox film cartridge—two small black cylinders joined by a crosspiece, a little more than six centimeters long—went in his inside coat pocket, then he carefully put his identification papers on top of it. If he were stopped and searched, he hoped the folded papers would pad the cartridge enough to escape being detected by a brisk patdown. There were other places he could hide the cartridge, of course, but he had to be able to get to it as quickly and unobtrusively as possible.
Leaving the apartment, Callon made his way down the narrow stairs. He’d just reached the second-floor landing when a door opened, and one of his neighbors started to come out. A young woman whose name he could never recall, she stopped the moment she saw him. Her eyes narrowed, and a disgusted frown curled an attractive mouth; she immediately stepped back into her apartment and slammed the door. But just before she disappeared, Callon heard her mutter, “Maudit traitre.”
Damned traitor. This was what his role as an MI-6 operative had cost him: his reputation. Almost no one knew that he belonged to the resistance, and only a couple of people in his cell were aware that he was spying for the British. So far as everyone else was concerned, Yves Callon was a Vichy collaborator, someone willing to work for the Nazis just to gain a job and luxuries like the coffee he’d just had with breakfast. He could only hope that, once the war was over and France was liberated, his true role would be revealed and he would be exonerated. Until then, he had few friends in his native city. Not even his own family would speak to him anymore.