Blood Red City Read Online Free PDF Page B

ceremony did, what might that mean?’ Guy asked, accepting his own tea.
    â€˜Could just be bad luck. The coverage is pretty comprehensive, there are Y Stations listening and intercepting enemy traffic all over the Empire. But there are some places we don’t cover very well. Maybe the source – the cat – is in one of those areas.’
    â€˜And where are they?’ Sarah asked.
    â€˜Mostly uninhabited and in the middle of nowhere.’
    â€˜We know the cat was with people.’
    â€˜South America, then. Or North America, come to that. The US have their own stations and we share data now that we’re all friends together.’
    â€˜They know about this place and what happens here?’ Sarah asked.
    â€˜I believe the number of Americans who know about us can be counted on the fingers of very few hands,’ Wiles told her.
    â€˜Are you counting me in that?’ Sarah asked.
    â€˜I’ll use my little finger to count you,’ Wiles said. ‘But the point is, your half-countrymen probably share as much and as willingly with us as we do with them.’
    â€˜So they might pick up signals from this cat, this Uber-whatever the German for cat is, and not tell us,’ Sarah said.
    â€˜Uber-Katz,’ Guy told her. He was fluent in German as well as many other languages. That was one of the main reasons he had been at the Foreign Office both before and after his time in the army, though he was glad to be back in his major’s uniform now.
    Wiles drained his tea and looked for somewhere to set down the empty mug. He finally perched it precariously on a pile of papers. ‘I’ll look for your cat. If it’s in the data we have, we’ll find it. I’ll get Douglas to go through the transmissions intercepted from the UDTs again. And any other transmissions that we’ve intercepted and which can’t be identified. If you can give me a timescale to narrow the search, that would be helpful.’
    â€˜Thank you,’ Sarah said.
    â€˜And we’ll pass on anything else that we find out that could help,’ Guy promised.
    *   *   *
    They chatted on the way back to London, easy in each other’s company. Guy watched Sarah as she drove the staff car, her eye occasionally leaving the road to look back at him. They talked about how the war was going – the fall of Singapore a few weeks previously, and how long it would be before America was fully committed to the conflict in Europe. They discussed Wiles and agreed that if anyone could find a single cat that could be almost anywhere in the world, it was him.
    Back at the Station Z office just off St James’s Square, they found the place apparently deserted and stole a quick embrace. They leaped apart as Miss Manners appeared from Colonel Brinkman’s office at the end of the main room. She returned to her desk, glancing at the two of them over her severe spectacles.
    â€˜Afternoon,’ Guy ventured.
    â€˜You know,’ Miss Manners told them, settling herself in front of her typewriter, ‘there are many secrets in these offices. But how you two feel about each other is not one of them.’
    Sarah suppressed a smile. She was amused to see that Guy – the hardened soldier – had gone rather pink.
    *   *   *
    There was an image in SS Sturmbannfuhrer Hoffman’s head, and he couldn’t get it out. Since the Vril creature had scratched him in the secret Vault below Wewelsburg Castle, all manner of strange images had been appearing in his thoughts, vying for attention. He hadn’t realised at first that he was infected by the creature. Hadn’t told anyone – who could he tell? Perversely, the only people he trusted were the British agents Pentecross and Davenport who had been with him in the Vault. Even his own people seemed to have abandoned him. His increasingly infrequent reports disappeared into the ether, unacknowledged and