‘It was you that brought Klara out of Germany, Mr Wilde? That was a very courageous thing to do.’

‘Well, I had a little help – from both Jim Vanderberg, of course, and Sunny Somerfeld.’

‘Sunny? She was involved?’

‘Of course. Are you saying you knew her?’

‘We were old friends. It was Sunny who suggested I go to seek help from Mr Vanderberg.’

Chapter 40

CHAPTER 40

The office was on the first floor of the US embassy in Grosvenor Square. A coolly efficient secretary immediately alerted her boss on the intercom.

‘Professor Wilde is here, sir.’ She put the phone down. ‘He says to go straight through, professor.’

Bill Whitney was sitting behind his desk in one of the more cramped offices in the embassy, a building Wilde knew well from his many visits when Jim Vanderberg had been posted here. Whitney stood up with a shiny American smile of welcome, and they shook hands.

‘Professor Wilde, I’ve heard a heck of a lot about you. You’ve been running poor Bodie Cashbone ragged from what I hear.’

‘Pleased to meet you, too, Mr Whitney. As for Mr Cashbone, I’d have to say the reverse is true.’

‘Well, he’s on his way up, so I can hear both sides of the story. Take a seat, won’t you. Sorry there’s not a great deal of room but we’ll find better quarters soon. Coffee?’

‘Coffee would be good.’

‘Shirley’ll bring it through in a couple of minutes.’

The door opened and Bodie Cashbone made another of his grand entrances. He nodded to his boss, the head of the COI in London, then turned his attention to Wilde.

‘So, do you have her with you?’

Wilde didn’t bother to answer the question.

‘Mr Whitney, I haven’t come here to be interrogated. I have questions of my own to put. First off, how closely have you been involved in Cashbone’s plans for Klara Rieger?’

Whitney sat back and regarded Wilde coolly. ‘Are you suggesting I don’t know what’s going on in my own outfit?’

‘I’m suggesting nothing. I’m merely posing a question. Has Cashbone gone rogue or is he operating on your orders?’

Whitney had a glass paperweight in his right hand and slammed it down on the desk.

‘What in God’s name is this? Bodie told me you were a piece of work – and it looks like he was right.’

Wilde pressed on. ‘He pushed you into this, didn’t he? The information somehow came directly to him from Germany and he wanted an operation to have the girl extricated, which is where I came in. I was the useful idiot. Is that how it was?’

‘No, not at all. The State Department heard from your friend Jim Vanderberg that Bormann was about to kill the girl – and Bill Donovan got on to me. Seems like the president had made a special request for your services.’