Citadel by Stephen Hunter Read Free Book Online

my crease. Anyhow,
before we go much further, may I sum up?” said
Basil.
    â€œIf you can.”
    â€œBy breaking the Russian crypto, you know that
a highly secure, carefully guarded book code has
been given to a forthcoming Russian spy. It contains
the name of a highly important British traitor
somewhere in government service. When he gets
here, he will take the code to the Cambridge librarian,
present his bona fides, and the librarian will
retrieve the Reverend Thomas MacBurney’s Path
to Jesu s—wait. How would the Russians themselves
have … Oh, now I see, it all hangs together.
It would be easy for the librarian, not like us, to
make a photographed copy of the book and have
it sent to the Russian service.”
    â€œNKVD, it is called.”
    â€œI think I knew that. Thus the librarian quickly
unbuttons the name and gives it to the new agent,
and the agent contacts him at perhaps this mysterious
Bletchley Park that the professor wasn’t supposed
to let slip—”
    â€œThat was a mistake, Professor,” said Sir Colin.
“No milk and cookies for you tonight.”
    â€œSo somehow I’m supposed to, I don’t know
what, do something somewhere, a nasty surprise
indeed, but it will enable you to identify the spy at
Bletchley Park.”
    â€œIndeed, you have the gist of it.”
    â€œAnd you will then arrest him.”
    â€œNo, of course not. In fact, we shall promote
him.”
    The Second Day/The Third Day
    It was a pity the trip to Paris lasted only six hours
with all the local stops, as the colonel had just
reached the year 1914 in his life. It was incredibly
fascinating. Mutter did not want him to attend flying
school, but he was transfixed by the image of
those tiny machines in their looping and spinning
and diving that he had seen—and described in detail
to Basil—in Mühlenberg in 1912, and he was
insistent upon becoming an aviator.
    This was more torture than Basil could have
imagined in the cellars of the Gestapo, but at last
the conductor came through, shouting, “Paris,
Montparnasse station, five minutes, end of the
line.”
    â€œOh, this has been such a delight,” said the
colonel. “Monsieur Piens, you are a fascinating
conversationalist—”
    Basil had said perhaps five words in six hours.
    â€œâ€”and it makes me happy to have a Frenchman
as an actual friend, beyond all this messy stuff
of politics and invasions and war and all that. If
only more Germans and French could meet as we
did, as friends, just think how much better off the
world would be.”
    Basil came up with words six and seven: “Yes, indeed.”
    â€œBut, as they say, all good things must come to an end.”
    â€œThey must. Do you mind, Colonel, if I excuse
myself for a bit? I need to use the loo and prefer
the first class here to the pissoirs of the station.”
    â€œUnderstandable. In fact, I shall accompany
you, monsieur , and—oh, perhaps not. I’ll check my
documents to make sure all is in order.”
    Thus, besides a blast of blessed silence, Basil
earned himself some freedom to operate. During
the colonel’s recitation—it had come around to
the years 1911 and 1912, vacation to Cap d’Antibes—
it had occurred to him that the authentic
M. Piens, being a clear collaborationist and seeking
not to offend the Germans, might well have reported
his documents lost and that word might,
given the German expertise at counterintelligence,
have reached Paris. Thus the Piens documents
were suddenly explosive and would land him either
in Dachau or before the wall.
    He wobbled wretchedly up the length of the
car—thank God here in first class the seats were
not contained as in the cramped little compartments
of second class!—and made his way to the
loo. As he went he examined the prospective
marks: mostly German officers off for a weekend
of debauchery far from their garrison posts, but at
least three French