Spook's Gold by Andrew Wood Read Free Book Online Page A

led by Pierre Bonny and Henri Lafont, the sole common denominator in their membership was their criminal histories.  Bonny had been a senior police officer who had been sacked due to charges of corruption.  Lafont was an overt career criminal who had been in and escaped from prison at least once.  He was being hunted by the police at the time of the fall of France and had immediately ingratiated himself into the protection of the occupying Gestapo by spying for them.  He was permitted to recruit and form the Carlingue and thus established as the formal head of this auxiliary to the Gestapo, even becoming a naturalised German in 1943, followed by formal appointment to the rank of SS Captain. 
    The Carlingue had increased their level of activity in the last few months following the replacement of René Bousquet as chief of the French police by Joseph Darnand.  Bousquet had cooperated with the German occupiers in les rafles against the Jews, but was still seen as being somewhat too soft.  Darnand was a French veteran of the Great War, decorated for bravery against the Germans, yet had aligned himself and his militia to Petain and the collaborationist Vichy government.  Following his appointment as Bousquet’s successor, Darnand had pledged the full allegiance and support of his combined force of police and militia to the Gestapo, which had earned him an honorary SS Sturmbahnfuhrer rank.  Once in place he had not hesitated in using his dual powers as police chief and secretary of state to accelerate the activities of deportation of Jews and suppression of the Resistance. 
    If the Carlingue were involved, then Marner was going to need some help from Boris. 

Chapter Six
    Marner returned directly from Schull’s hotel to his office and spent some time looking for files on the Carlingue, hoping to find any information on their members.  His primary interest was to find photos that he would be able to show to Pichon to enable identification of whoever had searched Schull’s room.  When his request to a filing clerk for assistance was met with a look of incredulity, he quickly interpreted this to mean that it was indeed a stupid question.  The Carlingue enjoyed patronage from the very highest level within the SS and therefore it was absurd to assume that there would be any files. 
    He ascended to the top level of number 74, which housed Department II, responsible for relations with and overview of the French civilian forces, including the police and gendarmes.  This situation was muddied by the fact that Darnand’s militia were directly aligned with the Gestapo and thus emboldened to ignore any attempt at control or management by Department II of the RHSA.  One of the French domestic law enforcement services would have control of the older pre-war criminal records, files that might still contain photos of Carlingue members.  However, the particular individual in the office who Marner trusted and was seeking was absent and he was reluctant to share his interest with anyone else. 
    There was considerable noise and excitement in the offices at the latest news.  Not only was Rome now totally in the hands of the US Army, but there was also outrage that the Americans had not respected the ‘open city’ policy and had fired on units of the German army who were trying to leave peacefully. 
    The other news circulating was that there was significant and wide scale Allied bombardment of the coastal defences from Belgium to Brittany, together with a massive escalation in unidentified radio traffic from inside and outside France.  Some speculation talked of preparation for an invasion by the Allies in the Pas de Calais, the most likely and closest point from England for them to put their troops ashore.  Others proposed that since the Allies had naval dominance of the North Sea, the invasion would be in the Low Countries, maybe even as far east as Denmark, which would allow them to strike quickly and directly into Germany