The last thing to do was to remove and hide the distributor cap in the boot of the car, thus immobilising the engine; the Czechs might be an honest lot, but with the number of refugees around, many of them people seeking to get out of the country right now – Prague alone had a population of Jews rated at forty thousand – there was a high risk of a long-parked car being stolen.

‘Right,’ Cal said, once they were back near Wenceslas Square. ‘Food, a good night’s sleep, and in the morning I will set about seeing what we can do.’

CHAPTER ELEVEN

The initial contact when buying those light machine guns, given to him by a Spanish republican envoy, had been a ministerial aide called Janek. He had a Catalan wife and worked at the offices of the Czech Finance Ministry as an aide to the minister.

To carry out the trade had involved Cal in several secret meetings with him, before he was passed on to others, but the notion of just calling at his home and saying hello was not one to contemplate. This was an operation in which there was no way of knowing where it would lead; he could not involve the man’s family or jeopardise his livelihood.

Nor could he visit him at the ministry without raising questions about an association that was supposed to be for that one transaction only and had been kept within a strict circle of those who needed to be consulted and squared politically, both to process the payments and call in the necessary documentation to transport the guns out of the country. What had been done might have had the nod from above, but it was illegal and thus stood as a career risk to those who had participated.

Cal did, however, know the café at which the man took a cup of morning coffee before going to work and he was there before him, keeping his face hidden until Janek walked in, a clutch of morning papers under his arm. For someone not versed in the craft of the intelligence game, Milas Janek was good; there was no startled reaction, indeed no apparent reaction at all.

He made his greetings to the habitual morning crowd and indulged in the usual banter of well-worn jokes, probably about weather and wives, though being in Czech they were a mystery to Cal. He exchanged normal pleasantries with the staff and in every respect acted as if a man who could threaten his continued employment was nowhere to be seen.

It was instructive, though, to see him light up a cigarette, to notice the ever so slight tremor in the hand that held the match as it went to the tip, as well as the deep concentration he gave to his newspapers as he flicked through the pages. Having seen him in this place before, at another time and on other prearranged business, Cal was aware Janek was nervous.

There was nothing he could do to make him immediately less so, as he had no intention of speaking to him in public. The wait for him to finish was longer than normal; Janek was taking his time, no doubt wondering if Cal would go away, but eventually he had to make moves to leave. He would be due at his desk, just outside the office of the finance minister.

Cal was on his heels as he exited the café, heading out onto a bustling street made noisy by the volume of traffic and the passing of screeching tram wheels, in which getting to Janek’s shoulder presented no problem other than the fact that he might be jostled by those hurrying in the opposite direction, and when he spoke, in German, his voice was low.

‘I need to be put in touch with Moravec.’

Janek did not turn his head, staring straight ahead as he replied. ‘Why?’

‘For the good of Czechoslovakia.’

‘Easy to say.’

‘I’m not here to buy weapons this time.’

‘Just as well, we need all the guns we have got for ourselves.’

‘Moravec can answer certain questions I want to pose.’

Janek actually sounded surprised. ‘You want to pose?’

‘To which I need answers,’ Cal hissed, deciding to take a flyer and make a claim that was way outside his brief. ‘And so does the British Government.’

That broke his stride a little, but they walked on in silence for some twenty paces before Janek spoke again. ‘That bench ahead, you see it?’

‘Yes,’ Cal replied, his eyes flicking to the named object some twenty yards along on the edge of the pavement, a double back-to-back seat shaded by a tree.

‘I am going to sit facing the street.’

Cal immediately killed his pace – Janek had been walking quite fast – to open a gap between them and watched as his man did as he had said, dusting the seat with a flapping hand then easing himself down and opening one of his newspapers to cover his face. Cal sat with his back to him facing the shopfronts, crossing his legs and adopting the air of a curious bystander.

‘Talk.’

There was no time for long explanations as Cal outlined what he was after and why. ‘The only person who has the information is Moravec, but I doubt it is safe to just turn up at the Interior Ministry desk and ask for him.’

‘You’re right, the place is crawling with German agents, not all of them from the border areas.’

‘The ministry, you mean?’

‘The whole city!’ Janek spat. ‘Even I might be being followed.’

Cal glanced back to where Vince was standing, idly looking at shoes in a shop window. He was without a lit cigarette, a sign that he had spotted no one taking an excessive interest in either Cal or Janek.

‘As far as I can tell you are not.’ Cal spun and used the back of the bench to lever himself up, surreptitiously dropping a card into Janek’s lap as he did so. ‘Get Moravec to call me at this number and ask to be put through to room number 47.’

‘What name?’

‘He doesn’t need that. Make it a personal visit and don’t you speak to him on the phone. After that you are out of it.’

‘A piece of advice.’

‘What?’ Cal replied, bending to retie his shoelace.

‘Speak English on the streets even if you are not understood, it will be better for you. Your German sounds too good, too natural and nothing like the accent of a Sudetenlander or a German resident of Prague. Even they know it’s considered unpatriotic to speak the language of our enemies right now and use Czech in public. My fellow countrymen are not too fond of real Germans at the moment.’

‘Just get Moravec to call.’

Cal walked back the way he had come, passing Vince without saying a word. His minder waited for ten seconds, then began to follow, his eyes ranging over those between them looking for things he had noticed before: an item of clothing, particularly distinctive shoes, they being the one thing, unlike a coat or a hat, which could not be quickly changed.

The voice sounded different on the phone, soft and near to a whisper. He did not know the man that well anyway, having met him only briefly, but Moravec spoke in heavily accented English and got his tenses all wrong. That nailed him.

‘St Vitus’s Cathedral at the rear of the high altar, three o’clock.’

Cal put the phone down without responding; there was no need to, though he did wonder at such an obscure location, as well as the need to meet in such secrecy in what was his contact’s own backyard. Still, Moravec was head of Czech counter-intelligence and perhaps being clandestine was a habit more than a necessity. Besides, he could do what he liked; it was Cal who needed him, not the other way round.

Gathering up Vince he took him to a restaurant in the old town, and when he ordered some food and a couple of beers, he took Janek’s advice and spoke loudly in English, like a tourist, though there were precious few of those around these days, which guaranteed them a great deal of attention.

As usual, there were locals who overheard him and were eager to talk, either to practise their own language skills or to find out what his country might do to assist their own, not a conversation in which he could give them much of a positive nature without telling outright lies.