Martineau turned on Muller. “And you wonder why Reichsfuhrer Himmler thought it worthwhile sending me here?”
He walked out without another word, went through the foyer and crossed the road to the Kubelwagen. Sarah was sitting on the bonnet. “How did it go?” she asked.
“Oh, I think you could say I put the fear of God in them all rather satisfactorily.” He opened the door for her. “Now you can take me on a Cook’s tour of this island of yours.”
Muller started to laugh. “I wish you could see yourself standing there in front of the desk, Willi. All you need is short pants.”
“I swear to God I’ll…”
“You’ll do nothing, Willi, just like the rest of us. You’ll just do as you’re told.” He went to a cupboard, opened it and found a glass and a bottle of cognac. “I must say he sounded just like the Reichsfuhrer on a bad day. All that German purity nonsense. All those platitudes.”
“Do you still want me to speak to my brother, Herr Captain?” Greiser asked. “IVe got a call booked through to Stuttgart for ten o’clock tonight.”
“Why not?” Muller poured some cognac into his glass and said impatiently, “For God’s sake, go down to the hospital and get that nose seen to, Willi. Go on, get out of my sight, both of you.”
Rommel was staying at a villa near Bayeux, in a place deep in the countryside and quite remote. It had been used as a weekend retreat by the commanding general of the area who had been happy to offer it to the field marshal when he’d expressed a desire for a quiet weekend. The Bernards, who ran the house, were extremely discreet. The wife was an excellent cook, the husband acted as butler.
Baum drove to the house ahead of the field marshal that afternoon in a Kubelwagen wearing his own Fallschirmja-ger uniform. He also affected a heavy black patch over the right eye on Rommel’s insistence. To Baum, he did not resemble the field marshal until he put on the clothes, changed his appearance with a few artful touches of makeup, the rubber cheekpads that made the face squarer. But the real change was in himself-the change that started inside. He thought Rommel, so he became Rommel. That was his unique talent as a performer.
Rommel and Hofer arrived later in the afternoon in the Mercedes driven by an engineer sergeant named Dreschler, an Afrika Korps veteran whom Hofer had specially selected. Madame Bernard provided the field marshal with a late luncheon in the drawing room. Afterward, Hofer brought Baum in to join them.
“Right, let’s go over things,” Rommel said.
“According to my information the people from Jersey will leave for Guernsey at around two in the morning. Ber-ger and I will leave here in the Kubelwagen at nine. There is an empty cottage on the estate a kilometer from here where we stop for him to change.”
“And afterward?”
“To a Luftwaffe reserve airstrip only ten kilometers from here. There is a pilot, an Oberleutnant Sorsa, waiting there under your personal order with a Fiesler Storch.”
“Sorsa? Isn’t that a Finnish name?” Rommel asked.
“That’s right.”
“Then what’s he doing with the Luftwaffe? Why isn’t he on the Eastern Front shooting down Russians with his own people?”
“Sorsa is hot stuff, a real ace. One of the greatest night fighter pilots in the business. These days he’s of more use flying over the Reich knocking down Lancaster bombers. He’s an excellent choice for this venture. He doesn’t fit into the usual Luftwaffe command structure. An outsider.”
“They don’t like us very much, the Finns,” Rommel said. “IVe never trusted them.” He lit a cigarette. “Still, carry on.”
“Sorsa won’t know his destination until we join the plane. I estimate we will land in Jersey around eleven o’clock. IVe given orders for Headquarters of Army Group B to notify Berlin at noon that youVe flown to Jersey. The reason for not letting them know earlier being the need to consider your safety when in flight.”
“And what happens here?”
“Generals Stulpnagel and Falkenhausen arrive later in the day. Stay overnight and leave on Saturday morning.”