She went into the bedroom to change. She called through the curtain: “Does that mean they’ve stopped looking for you?” “No. I saw Abdullah in the souk. He says the Egyptian police aren’t really interested, but there’s a Major Vandarn who’s keeping the pressure on.” Wolff put down the news,paper, frowning. He would have liked to know whether Vandam was the officer who had broken into the Villa les Oliviers. He wished he had been able to look more closely at that man, but from across the street the officer’s face, shaded by the peaked cap, had been a dark blank. Sonja said: “How does Abdullah know?” “I don’t know.” Wolff shrugged. “He’s a thief, he hears things.” He went to the icebox and took out the bottle. It was not really cold enough, but he was thirsty. He poured two glasses. Sonja came out, dressed: as he had anticipated, she was transformed, her hair perfect, her face lightly but cleverly made up, wearing a sheer cherry-red dress and matching shoes. A couple of minutes later there were footsteps on the ganl-, plank and a knock at the hatch. Sonja’s taxi had arrived. She drained her glass and left. They did not say hello and goodbye to one another. Wolff went to the cupboard where he kept the radio. He took out the English novel and the sheet of paper bearing the key to the code. He studied the key. Today was May 28. He had to add 42-the year-to 28 to arrive at the page number in the novel which he must use to encode his message. May was the fifth month, so every fifth letter on the page would be discounted. He decided to send HAVE ARRIVED. CHECKING IN. ACKNOWLEDGE. Beginning at the top of page 70 of the book, he looked along the line of print for the letter H. It was the tenth character, discounting every fifth letter. In his code it would therefore be represented by the tenth letter of the alphabet, J. Next he needed an A. In the book, the third letter after the H was an A. The A of HAVE would therefore be represented by the third letter of the alphabet, C. There were special ways of dealing with rare letters, like X. This type of code was a variation on the one-time pad, the only kind of code which was unbreakable in theory and in THE KEY TO REBECCA 41
practice. To decode the message a listener had to have both the book and the key. When he had encoded his message he looked at his watch. He was to transmit at midnight. He had a couple of hours before he needed to warm up the radio. He poured another glass of champagne and decided to finish the caviar. He found a spoon and picked up the pot. It was empty. Sonja had eaten it all.
The runway was a strip of desert hastily cleared of camel thorn and large rocks. Rommel looked down as the ground came up to meet him. The Storch, a light aircraft used by German commanders for short trips around the battlefield, came down like a fly, its wheels on the ends of long, spindly front legs. The plane stopped and Rommel jumped out. The heat hit -him first, then the dust. It had been relatively cool, up in the sky; now he felt as if he had stepped into a furnace. He began to perspire immediately. As soon as he breathed in, a thin layer of sand coated his lips and the end of his tongue. A fly settled on his big nose, and he brushed it away. Von Mellenthin, Rommel’s Ic-intelligence officer-ran toward him across the sand, his high boots kicking up dusty clouds. He looked agitated. “Kesselring’s here,” iie said. “Auch, das noch,” said Rommel. “Thafs all I need.” Kesselring, the smiling field marshal, represented everything Rommel disliked in the German armed forces. He was a General Staff officer, and Rommel hated the General Staff; he was a founder of the Luftwaffe, which had let Rommel down so often in the desert war; and he was-worst of all-a snob. One of his acid comments had gotten back to Rommel. Complaining that Rommel was rude to his -tubordinate officers, Kesselring had said: “It might be worth speaking to him about it, were it not that he’s a Wuerttemberger.” Wuerttemberg was the provincial state where Rommel was born, and the remark epitomized the prejudice Rommel had been fighting all his career. He stumned across the sand toward the command vehicle, with von Niellenthin in tow. “General Cruewell has been captured,” von Mellenthin said. “I had to ask Kesselring to take over. He’s spent the afternoon trying to find out where you were.” 42 Ken Follett