Eye of the Needle by Ken Follett

Author:Ken Follett
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub, pdf
Tags: Married women, German, Scotland, 1939-1945, General, Fiction, Suspense, Historical, War & Military, Thrillers, World War, Espionage
ISBN: 9780062020895
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2010-07-27T04:39:08+00:00

18

THE U-505 WHEELED IN A TEDIOUS CIRCLE, HER powerful diesels chugging slowly as she nosed through the depths like a gray, toothless shark. Lieutenant Commander Werner Heer, her master, was drinking ersatz coffee and trying not to smoke any more cigarettes. It had been a long day and a long night. He disliked his assignment; he was a combat man and there was no combat to be had here; and he thoroughly disliked the quiet Abwehr officer with storybook-sly blue eyes who was an unwelcome guest aboard his submarine.

The intelligence man, Major Wohl, sat opposite the captain. The man never looked tired, damn him. Those blue eyes looked around, taking things in, but the expression in them never changed. His uniform never got rumpled, despite the rigors of underwater life, and he lit a new cigarette every twenty minutes, on the dot, and smoked it to a quarter-inch stub. Heer would have stopped smoking, just so that he could enforce regulations and prevent Wohl from enjoying tobacco, but he himself was too much of an addict.

Heer had never liked intelligence people, he’d always had the feeling they were gathering intelligence on him. Nor did he like working with the Abwehr. His vessel was made for battle, not for skulking around the British coast waiting to pick up secret agents. It seemed to him plain madness to risk a costly piece of fighting machinery, not to mention its skilled crew, for the sake of one man who might well fail to show up.

He emptied his cup and made a face. “Damn coffee,” he said. “Tastes vile.”

Wohl’s expressionless gaze rested on him for a moment, then moved away. He said nothing.

Forever cryptic. To hell with him. Heer shifted restlessly in his seat. On the bridge of a ship he would have paced up and down, but men on submarines learn to avoid unnecessary movement. He finally said, “Your man won’t come in this weather, you know.”

Wohl looked at his watch. “We will wait until 6 A.M.,” he said easily.

It was not an order—Wohl could not give orders to Heer; but the bald statement of fact was still an insult to a superior officer. Heer told him so.

“We will both follow our orders,” Wohl said. “As you know, they originate from a very high authority indeed.”

Heer controlled his anger. The young man was right, of course. Heer would follow his orders, but when they returned to port he would report Wohl for insubordination. Not that it would do much good; fifteen years in the Navy had taught Heer that headquarters people were a law into themselves…. “Well, even if your man is fool enough to venture out tonight, he is certainly not seaman enough to survive.”

Wohl’s only reply was the same blank gaze.

Herr called to the radio operator. “Weissman?”

“Nothing, sir.”

Wohl said, “I have a feeling that the murmurs we heard a few hours ago were from him.”

“If they were, he was a long way from the rendezvous, sir,” the radio operator said. “To me it sounded more like lightning.

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