Yesterday’s Spy by Tom Bradby

Author:Tom Bradby [Bradby, Tom]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Random House UK
Published: 2022-05-04T00:00:00+00:00

17

Mount Avala, near Belgrade, November 1945

‘LIE STILL, FOR Christ’s sake …’

Haddon was vibrating with anxiety beside him and, after a night of waiting, it was starting to grate on Harry’s nerves.

‘How much longer?’

‘And be quiet.’

The mist cleared for a moment. Harry wiped the lenses of the binoculars with his shirt cuff and peered through them but could still see nothing. He scratched the beard that had grown so long these past months that the partisans had taken to calling him Rasputin. It occurred to him that even Amanda and Sean would struggle to pick him out of a crowd. Whenever he caught a glimpse of himself in a mirror, he wasn’t even sure he recognized himself.

‘Something must have happened,’ Haddon whispered.

‘They’ll be here.’

A gust of wind swept the light drizzle hard into their faces, but the movement behind it was unmistakable. Harry raised the binoculars again. ‘They’re here.’

Haddon tried to get to his feet, but Harry grabbed hold of his belt and yanked him back. ‘What the—?’

‘Let them find us.’

‘How?’

Harry watched as the parachutes spiralled down into the long grass. He waited while the newcomers gathered their lines. Harry let out a low whistle and the men began to jog towards him. ‘Zdravo!’ they chorused.

‘Dobrodošli,’ Harry whispered.

‘What took you so damned long?’ Haddon asked.

Harry was already on his feet. ‘Let’s go.’

Without looking back, he set off. As he ran, he could hear the soft footfall of the men behind him and the steady drip of rainwater from the pines. Other than that, the forest was eerily quiet in the hours before dawn.

They weaved through the trees and went to ground by the next clearing. The sky was filled with parachutes – perhaps two dozen in all – and a few seconds later the first had floated down into the meadow.

‘We’re in business,’ Haddon said.

One of the royalist soldiers beside him whistled once and waved to indicate that his comrades should join them in the shelter of the trees.

It looked like an orderly procession, as if an invisible thread were quietly drawing all the men into one corner of the meadow, until machine-gun fire shattered the silence.

The young men closest to them were the first to be cut down. One of the soldiers lying next to Harry cried out and scrambled to his feet. Harry grabbed him, stared into his startled eyes, but the lad shook himself free and charged out into the clearing. The others went with him. They had almost reached their fallen comrades before they were mown down.

Harry pushed himself upright and started to run back in the direction from which they had come. A few moments later, he realized Haddon was not with him. He retraced his steps to find him staring at the slaughter in shock. Harry gripped his fellow agent by the scruff of the neck and yanked him to his feet. He saw the terror in his face. ‘Run,’ he said, with steely understatement. ‘Run for your life.’

Haddon needed no further encouragement. They hurtled back towards the path that had brought them up there two hours previously.

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